A Journey Already Taken
by Elise Marie
Summary: Daryl has escaped Terminus with all the others, except there's one thing still clearly missing, one thing that he needs to find before he can agree to some foolish mission to Washington. Beth needs to get out of Grady Memorial, but she isn't any dead girl anymore, she isn't waiting for anyone to come and rescue her. Together they will make a journey home. But where is home?
1. Chapter 1

Title: A Journey Already Taken

Category: Bethyl hurt/comfort, romance – or at least what passes for romance in the Walking Dead Universe.

Spoilers/Season: Season 5 canon divergence

Rating: PG-13 – Language and violence

Content Warnings: Language, some violence of the Walker variety and some Human on Human. There are some déjà vu character deaths. There are new characters brought in, but they'll mainly be cannon fodder.

Summary: Daryl has escaped Terminus with all the others, except there's one thing still clearly missing, one thing that he needs to find before he can agree to some foolish mission to Washington.

Beth needs to get out of Grady Memorial, but she isn't any dead girl anymore, she isn't waiting for anyone to come and rescue her. No, she's going to get herself out of there with the help of Noah even if she knows she could wait because he will come for her. She knows he will.

Together they will make a journey home.

Disclaimer: I own none of the previously recognized characters in this story. They belong to Robert Kirkman/AMC/not me. Original characters are mine, but won't last long. Please do not post this anywhere else without my permission.

Comments: This randomly came to me when I wondered what would have happened if Beth had succeeded in escaping with Noah, if Daryl had gone for her without Carol and the rest then set off Washington/Alexandria on their own. So this is my canon divergence from Strangers/4 Walls and a Roof. This is my first foray in to Walking Dead and Bethyl fiction. I am taking the time frames from the Walking Dead Wikia so when the prison falls it is approaching autumn and although winter never really happens in the show, it does in this.

TWD – TWD – TWD

Everyone was celebrating it seemed from the outside; Rick was smiling considering Abraham's words with his daughter on his lap. Finally, the leader of their random family had found his daughter and they had somewhere safe to stay for a night or two. Well, as safe as anywhere could be with Walkers swarming around everywhere. Maggie was reunited with Glenn, Sasha and Bob seemed to be developing something and everyone generally seemed in good spirits. Since the fall of the prison, everyone running for what had probably only been a week or so but had felt like a lifetime, and an escape from cannibals the group had finally stumbled on to something good. Father Gabriel and his church, the last safe-haven in the area it would have you believe. They had stores of food, obtained from a run that morning, a small collection of weapons that would have to make do for the time being and a bus parked out back that could carry them all… somewhere, keep them all safe on the road from the dead that roamed the Earth.

Except that was no longer the only danger. It had never been the only danger. Sometimes the dead were not even the real danger. People were. The Governor and his tank. Gareth and his cannibals. Black cars with white crosses.

And the family were not all reunited, one was still missing although everyone else seemed to have forgotten that.

As per usual, Daryl was stood on the outskirts of the group, watching and listening, hating them all very slightly. Often, his hatred was not really a hatred of the group, the people he did really think of as his family, it was more a dislike of how their ease with each other made him feel so wholly inadequate. This time there was a true dislike of each and every one of them because the only person who had truly made him feel adequate, if not more than, was the heart of their family and she was not sitting and laughing along with the others.

Right about now she would have been singing to them all, smiling and lighting up the room more than their good moods alone were right now.

And maybe Maggie would have joined in.

And maybe Glenn would have swayed along with his wife.

And maybe Rick would have watched his daughter being sung to by the person she most considered her mother.

And maybe Carl would have kept glancing at the older girl on whom he did still have a crush no matter how well he hid it now.

And maybe Daryl would have been brought further in to the group by the gentle melody and her eyes staring right through him.

But none of them seemed to realize she was even absent. None of them except for Daryl. These people who were supposed to care about her more than him – her sister, brother in law, her _daughter's_ father and brother – they were oblivious to the huge gaping hole surrounding them, the vortex in the center, the black hole that was threatening to suck them all in one by one. Except for Daryl.

He felt her absence more than the others and it was all because of those three days they ran together, the three days they survived together. Those three short days that they had _lived_ together. She had shown him that – how to live, how to hope and see the good in others and he had been prepared to stay in that funeral home with her, actually _living_ and not just surviving, because she had seen through his bullshit and she had burned away their pasts. His childhood, the nightmare of what family had meant before the turn, had gone up in flames just as her childhood had.

Maybe that was why no one else felt her absence as much. Beth was just a child to them, but Daryl had seen her grow and mature impossibly so in those three short days. Perhaps all it had taken was to be separated from her sister and father, those who saw her only as the child they had always known. Perhaps to be taken away from Judith, her only purpose at the prison to mother that child, had been what matured the youngest Greene.

Whichever or whatever, Daryl had seen it. He had seen her on the cusp of being able to actively survive, of being on equal footing with Maggie, Carol and Michonne, the women she thought he had wanted her to be.

None of the people sitting in the church, rejoicing in a moment of calm and freedom knew she had it in her. They probably had all thought there was no way she could have made it out of the prison and, yeah, she probably would not have if Daryl had not told her to leave when he did. It had felt as if they were the last two to leave. But they all knew now that she had made it, that she had been with Daryl for those few days before she had been gone and none of them seemed to care. Daryl had not been too forthcoming with details of their few days together, but he knew she was still alive out there.

He knew her strength.

He knew her hope.

He knew she was still surviving, but she would not be able to _live_ until she was back with her family. No, Daryl realized as he looked upon their family, not until she was back with him.

So in the midst of his family enjoying their freedom, Daryl slipped from the church grabbing up the last fragment he had of her – the bag she had carried and he had placed safely in Rick's hidden gun bag, frustrated at their lack of care, heartbroken that he missed her, that he needed her here. He slipped away in silence, his steps never making any sound until he wanted them to and he headed towards the car he and Carol had found earlier in the day. There was no plan in his mind; Daryl had no idea what he was going to do or how he was going to go about it, but he needed to find her and bring her home.

It really was that simple. The execution was not.

First, he would try and find that funeral home, see if there were any clues there. There would be no tracks left, but he could scout from there easier. Drive back to the crossroads where he had no idea which way to turn and Joe stumbled upon him and search all the options. Perhaps he would be lucky and find where the car had come from. Anything no matter how small, could be the clue that he needed to find her.

He quickly came upon the car and Carol who seemed to be about to use it, to leave the family again and Daryl hesitated in trying to convince her to stay. There was something tainted within their family now and Daryl was unsure if it was because Beth was absent or because the others failed to notice her absence. Why would he encourage Carol to return to that? But it was dangerous out here alone, of that Daryl was well aware, and Carol should stay with the others, but maybe not right now.

"Where are ya goin'?" she asked him with suspicious eyes.

"Got somethin' t'go look for." She raised her chin, regarding him carefully and then he offered. "Wanna come with?" Carol's eyes read him as easily as they always could and Daryl squirmed internally at the action, regretting asking her in that moment.

"Well," she began, but she stopped when the noise of a car zooming past the intersection distracted them both. Daryl's eyes shot straight to it, his bow rising, and he instantly saw the white cross in the back window.

"Fuck," he cursed, moving to the back of the car and smashing in the brake lights with his crossbow. It was a dark car, looked to be the same as the one that took Beth, not that Daryl had noted down the license plate of either, but the white cross alone was enough. "Carol," he grunted, shoving open the driver's door, throwing Beth's bag on to the other seat. "Get back t'th others. Tell 'em I'm'a find Beth."

"Daryl, wait!" she tried to stop him as he sat down, slammed the door closed and started up the engine. "You don't know-"

He cut her off: "That's th' car't took Beth." Moving the car in to gear, Daryl peeled away from Carol, risking only a slight glance in the rear window to see her standing there arms out spread as if saying _what the fuck, Daryl?_ He wanted to explain more. To tell her about the funeral home, how Beth's bag had been strewn on the road, how he saw that car with a white cross on the back, had chased it until he could not take a step further. He knew that following this car, the one that could easily be the exact same one that took her, would lead him to her because he would bring her back to their family. Someone needed to see through his bullshit after all and there was something else about her and what she brought to all of them, but also to him.

It had taken the three days of running with her to make it clear. She had been right. He should never have seen her as just another dead girl. Although part of him saw everyone as just another dead person, and she changed that. The first day, running and running and running, barely even stopping to rest let alone eat or drink, just running, he had been barely surviving and certainly not living. Even at the prison, he wondered retrospectively if he had been living. At the farm? At the quarry? With Merle before the turn?

That night as the moonshine shack burned before them, he had felt something awaken in him and the next day, with her, the youthful desire to learn the bow, to hunt and track, Daryl had seen optimism and hope within her that had burned as bright as the shack, as something new within him. All he had thought as they were hunting was that he was glad they had left the prison together. Maybe he was not the perfect person for her, emotionally, given her father's recent death, but, for her, he wanted to try.

Anyway, they needed someone to sing to them all at night.

And there really was not anyone better at calming Judith.

As Daryl continued following as far back as he thought was safe, his thoughts turned to the baby who had been thrust upon them all, most especially Beth. Rick's breakdown after Lori's death had thrust Daryl in to the council, into respect and power that was a completely alien notion to him and made Beth the baby's Mama. It had been over a week, but he reckoned less than two weeks from his watching the moon, since the prison finally fell, since Judith had last seen Beth. Did the baby miss Beth? Would she recognize the blonde singer who cared for her the most since birth?

Keeping his distance, Daryl quickly began to recognize the roads and the route, realizing that he was heading not just back towards Atlanta but in to Atlanta itself. That seemed impossible to him. How could there be people still surviving in the city? It had been bombed in the earlier stages of the outbreak, it had been filled with Walkers. Glenn had always managed to make successful runs back in to the city, but to be living there?

Then Daryl remembered the old people's home that had been surviving only a year ago. What? There were other survivors within the city? With all the hordes they had seen since leaving the quarry, over-running the farm and then the prison, heading towards Terminus, it made sense that the cities might actually be the safest places with the Walkers clearly abandoning them in search of greater food supplies. It was just another reason that Father Gabriel's church was no safer than anywhere else in the world anymore.

Daryl only remembered the horrendous parts of his own childhood, his first beating at the age of four, and nothing good before, during or really after that age. He liked to think that a baby of Judith's age could, maybe not in the conventional way that adults remembered things, but maybe by smell or perhaps sound.

Yeah, he decided nodding to himself as the car turned a corner and there seemed to be some commotion. Daryl slowed and came to a stop as he heard a gunshot, saw Walkers approaching from multiple directions. He tried to start up the engine, even if he needed to continue on and not follow the car, he needed to move away from these Walkers before too many were attracted by the shot. The car would not start so he tried again, with no luck. He checked the windows and looked all around; there were a few Walkers coming from around and plenty of boarded up buildings. It was clearly a risk that he needed to take, so with practiced quiet ease, Daryl exited the vehicle and quietly closed the door, avoiding any Walkers nearby.

His plan was to avoid the Walkers, that he would take out any that he needed to, but that he would move quietly as he would if he were hunting despite the fact that he was clearly the prey tonight. He would find a building that he could get in to, clear and secure behind him, which is exactly what he did, finding a corner of an office that was secure and passable for him to sleep in. Though he barely slept, and he had known that he would not, not as exposed as he was and completely alone. What he had not expected was that every time he closed his eyes and truly drifted off in to sleep, he heard Beth singing her sweet lullabies to Judith, the ones that he had heard almost every night at the prison no matter how quiet she tried to be. That was how he knew though, that Judith would remember Beth, at least her songs.

As dawn broke, Daryl was already awake, his eyes closed in the corner just as a means to resting them, and he waited until there was just enough light that he could sneak out of the building and get a better layout of the city. Atlanta was not exactly a frequent haunt of his back in the day. Stepping in to the morning light, Daryl took half a moment to survey his immediate surroundings and it hit him that the city was dead. Even with the dead milling around and possible pockets of people, the streets were dead and Daryl wanted to imagine it bustling and filled with cars, people, smog even at such an early hour, and then he thought that maybe this was all for the best. His youth had been spent in the back of nowhere, in the woods where nature ruled over man, aside from men like him. Atlanta as a thriving city would have been Daryl's worst nightmare. Hell, sometimes the prison had been like his living hell with the amount of people in there especially when the Woodbury people moved in and there had suddenly been people filling the place; children running around, people wanting to thank him and shake his hand for dinner. Until it was night time and all Daryl would hear were a few gently snores, minimal cries from Judith because of Beth's singing. Always her singing.

He needed to get somewhere high, needed a building with a high vantage point that he could make it to the roof. As Daryl's eyes scouted around to find the best viable option, his eyes were drawn to the car he had abandoned the night before. The trunk was wide open. Slipping further in to the street, there were no Walkers immediately present, but he moved slowly anyway and checked out the interior of the trunk. There was some blood on the broken tail-light, putting a finger to it, Daryl felt that it was still sticky. Drying, but recent and it smelt fresher than a Walker's. Inside of the trunk there was some dry blood flaked across one end. It was not much, but it was there. He glanced down at the floor and saw where some of it had spilled on to the ground and there was a boot tread in it. Someone had stepped in to it on their way out of the trunk as there was a scuffed bloody boot print about a step away. It soon dried up, only leaving three steps.

Daryl did not need more than those three steps. The distance between the steps, it was small, too small for a grown man, too clear for a Walker, and too small for a child. Not that Daryl needed to analyze the tracks, he recognized the boot tread anywhere.

It was Beth's.

TWD - TWD - TWD

A/N: Okay, I just need to say that I hated the Grady storyline. It made no sense to me. I read somewhere that the point of Beth's death was to show that death can happen in the middle of a character's story, but the show has done that perfectly at other times (Denise). I would have rather never seen Beth again (to live in hope/denial that she was still alive) or maybe to have found her already dead from some other means - not a shot to the head from Dawn, maybe as a Walker somewhere else giving Daryl a moment like with Merle. Ignoring the fact that I found it completely anti-climactic (although Daryl carrying her out was heart-breaking), the storyline within Grady just made no sense and did nothing for the plot that better ways of killing Beth could still have done. I get that it was character development for Beth and then ending her story - fine, but there were better ways they could have developed her character. I mean, a hospital inside of Atlanta still surviving. Driving that far out of Atlanta? Did the cops knock Beth out? Did they run her over by accident? Was it a set up at the funeral home? Everything was clean there yet no one seemed to actively be living there, so who made it a trap? Yeah, I'm still bitter.


	2. Chapter 2

**Warning: Mentions of sexual abuse (from the Grady guys)**

It was getting dark as two of them made their way through the city; a city neither of them had ever visited before the dead started walking. They were both scared, keeping low as they moved, careful to not attract the attention of the dead or of any passing police car, and hoping, just hoping, that they could find somewhere to stay safe for the night and think on things the next day. Their plan had been simple enough. Get the elevator key, scale down the shaft and then get across the car park and out of the gate. It was a plan so simple that it had worked; they were out but now… they were possibly now in more danger than they had been before. Although neither truly believed that. The dangers out here were relatively simple – avoid the dead, avoid being scratched, avoid being bitten, of being eaten and die horrifically. If only they had a gun with two bullets and they would have no fear of how to die. But they did not and there was always the chance of going back there, of being forced to have a bite cut off, of working to pay back the cost of the treatment for which you never asked, of being raped and forced to perform sex acts as further _payment_ and _protection_.

It said a lot about the world when Beth would rather be eaten or eat a bullet than go back to that hospital, so she followed Noah through a city he had at least been in before the hospital forced his father's death and kept him working off a debt he should never have had. Once before, he had failed in this city. He had failed in whatever he had been doing with his father. They had been injured, the police had found them and made Noah their bitch. Was she a fool for following him a second time?

Were they both fools for not discussing the plan further than make it out of the elevator shaft and past the gates?

It had been less than a week of Beth's incarceration at Grady, an incarceration because it was more of a prison than the prison Beth had lived happily in for months. Armed police guards, cells with uncomfortable beds and solid doors, no way out, no peace or joy, and no one asking for Beth to sing. Of course, in her week there, no one even knew that Beth could sing. Why would they? Why would she even consider singing for them? No one in that hospital was deserving of her singing, not when the last person she had sung for was Daryl, she could still hear him shouting after that car she had been bundled in to.

She only knew it had been less than a week because Daryl had shown her the moon that night as they had sat outside the shack, both more than a little drunk on moonshine and he had described the phases of the moon to her. It was not exact, especially not for her eyes, but she had seen the changes and had counted three nights before this one; Beth refused to believe it had been longer than a week. She refused to believe that she had been a prisoner for that long. It was probably why she had agreed to the escape plan without really planning further than that, all she had wanted was to stop being a prisoner. Just as, with Daryl, she had wanted to stop being another dead girl in his eyes. Beth was starting to wonder if she had ever been that to him, now that she knew him better.

And she knew him well enough that she knew he would not be about to give up on her, but after a week, in the city, well, her trail would be cold and how was he supposed to try and find her after that long? Whilst she knew that he would follow her, that he would try and find her, she also knew that he was no Superman, he was close, but he was just a man and there was no way he would be able to find her. Not after this long. Beth had not been content to remain a prisoner, or to wait on a rescue because maybe Daryl was right, maybe no one else had survived the prison, maybe Daryl had not survived chasing the car, maybe Noah was all that she had left now.

It was all on him now, Noah, Beth thought as she set her eyes on the man huddled down in front of her. He knew the city better than her. He knew the route to his home in Virginia. From here, Beth was unsure she could even find her way back to the farm let alone the funeral home or prison. There was no way of heading back, moving backwards through her own history because no one else would have even if she did know the way. Or could find a map. Noah though, Noah knew his way home and it was walled, he said, safe. So it was as good a place as any to go.

One day, in the future, she would find out about them, maybe even find them. She had no idea how, but Beth knew it would happen. No one, not even the upstanding citizens of Grady would diminish her ability to hope; Daryl had tried when drunk and yelling, and he had failed. Everyone would fail at crushing her. It could be in another twenty years, maybe after a cure was found and civilization rebuilt itself, or because enough people found a safe-haven, a truly _safe_ place, and Beth would meet a young girl, dark haired with a look of Lori and Carl about her, a feel of Rick about her with the skills of Daryl and the humour of Glenn and Beth would know. Because they were all safe together, somewhere outside of Atlanta, Beth felt it in her bones just as she knew that Judith would pick up the best from all of them. One night, Beth would hear the young girl singing and it would be something Beth had sung all those nights at the prison. Beth would join in and they would both cry, realizing who the other was and then Judith would tell Beth all about their family.

"Come on," Noah hissed and Beth noticed a Walker stop and jerk his head in their direction. Silently she cursed Noah's voice, following him as he made his way further along the road. It was her that heard the noise first, a car rapidly approaching and she grabbed Noah's arm, pulling him behind a dumpster as she peeked out to see if they were in any danger. Instinctually she went to hold her breath, but instead she shallowed her breaths to keep it even and quiet. The Walker who heard Noah had not seemed to follow them and she watched as the car rounded a corner after zooming past. It was one of Grady's cars and the sight of it boiled her blood, made her sweat in fear. There was no way she was going back there.

She moved to pull on Noah's arm, to pull him away as Walkers were being attracted to the Grady car and a gunshot rang out, which caused Beth to flinch, but she hesitated when she heard the low grumble of another car. They needed to stay hidden if a back-up car were following. The engine stopped and the car was across the road, not far from where she and Noah were hidden. Squinting her eyes in the darkness, Beth tried to make out details of the car that, so far, was managing to stay out of the way of the Walkers, but she could barely see anything in the minimal light. Just a few shadows. The driver tried to start the engine up again, but it would not start; Beth remained glued to the black outline of the driver. From her distance, Beth heard nothing as the driver opened the door and exited the car, but then she felt her heart stop followed by a rush of blood to her ears as the shadowed driver moved towards the back of the vehicle. There was a bag hanging from the driver's hand and what was clearly a bow held in the other.

Could it be…?

She was too far away to make any noise, to get his attention, even a low whistle could bring a Walker towards them. A Walker bustled past, dragging a foot as it did and Beth shifted backwards in to Noah, both of them held their breath and Beth was sure that her thumping heart beat would give away their location.

The Walker continued past and Beth slowly released her breath still wondering what was the closer call – the officer a street away or the Walker less than a meter away. She ran straight out on to the street, hoping to catch a better sight of the car's driver but there was nothing aside from Walkers and they were going to scent her. There was no way to go after whoever the driver was, and anyone could carry a bow in the damn apocalypse, and he could be just as dangerous as the cops that would not go easy on a re-offender. Their joint recapture would surely lead to Noah's death and what could be considered a fate worse than that for Beth.

Noah was a step away from her, pulling at her arm in the opposite direction when suddenly Beth knew where they could spend the night so she grabbed his hand tightly and pulled him towards the broken-down car, popping the trunk. She nodded her head at it and Noah looked at her in confusion.

"Get in," she ordered, ripping an arm off the awful blue scrubs she was wearing. There was no bandana to secure the door once they were inside. Oh, what she would give to see that disgusting, smelly and stained red rag. With a heavy reluctance, Noah bent to climb in and not a moment too soon as far as Beth was concerned. It pained her that she was starting to have thoughts of what she would need to do to survive on her own, wondering if she could sacrifice someone, him, to save herself. No, there was no way that Beth would succumb to the depths the world was made of since the turn.

"Oww," Noah flinched as he caught himself on the broken tail light and Beth ripped off her right arm scrubs to tightly wrap it around his arm. It was nothing really, but there was blood on the broken glass, some on the grey concrete. _Shit_ , she thought, _fresh_ _blood_. It was too late now. Climbing in after him, Beth made herself as comfortable as possible and secured the latch with the torn off arm. It would have to do. Her foot kicked out to get his attention and their eyes just managed to meet in the darkness, she tried to tell him to rest, sleep, and she would take first watch but all she felt were his shoulders shrugging. A week was not long enough for him to be able to read her eyes.

Eventually she fell asleep and she woke when something jostled the car, both of them startled awake. Okay, so she needed more skill at taking turns to keep watch. Releasing the latch, Beth opened the trunk just a slither and saw that the sun was starting to rise, spreading an other worldly glow across the concrete. There was only one Walker within her eyeline so she knew they had to take this chance.

"Hey," she whispered. "You know where we can go?"

"Some buildings we can check out," he replied with an equally quiet voice, thick with deep sleep because he was used to weeks of sleep in the hospital where there was no imminent danger. In Beth's short incarceration, she had never managed to lose her guard to sleep deeply or peacefully or for longer than four hours. Her body clock was still on survival mode unlike all of those in the hospital. "Can scout for supplies, more knives." They each had a knife, but that was all. A spare was always handy and water would quickly become a necessity. Silently she followed him through the city, knowing that there was no way to track Daryl, not through a city.

If it even was him.

She hoped it was him, hoped that he had come to rescue her, but she already knew that she had rescued herself. Remembering his training and how she had quipped at him that soon she would not need him anymore; Beth wondered if it were true.

He had not been able to teach her that much in their few days running, where she had helped him to bury his past, to consider living and he started teaching her to survive in this new world. No, if it were Daryl, there was no way for her to find him but he was a tracker. If she left enough of a trail, he would find her. She knew it. That was always the best way with a tracker, a hunter. As she followed Noah through the dead city, or the city of the dead, she was not sure, Beth left whatever marks that she could. Just little things. She scuffed her shoes through any wet blood or dirt that she found, made a partial foot print clear enough for him but hopefully partial enough for any Grady cops to not notice or care about. On certain surfaces, if they needed to wait and hide, let a Walker pass, Beth would make a scratched mark. Not anything so obvious as her name or first initial, but she did use his. The letter D had no significance to the cops, other than for their own illustrious leader and why would anyone be leaving a trail for her? Any time that there were growing weeds, Beth would break off just one strand, tear off one and tie a knot as they crouch-ran through buildings and drop it further on.

Beth had to hope that it was Daryl that found the clues, that it was not the cops, that Daryl would understand every signal and that the cops would be oblivious. Because Noah was adamant that the cops would be after them, needed them to return to pay their debts and to show the others that there was no hope in running.

No way in Hell that she was going back to Grady.

The sun was not even half way across the sky when Noah ushered them in to a building, a large open foyer that looked like every inch was metallic. It was modern and there was a small bank of elevators – three opposite the entry doors with a large silver and glass reception desk in between. On a wall to the side there was a list of twenty floors, a name by each one; Beth could not make out any pattern to the company names. Noah moved through the reception area without looking back or saying anything. His movements were rigid and controlled, rushed in the same way they had been on the journey here but with no panic now. There was something of a purpose in his stride that Beth was unaware of; she followed him in to the stairwell none the less. With her knife raised and ready, Beth was on edge as he opened the door almost carelessly and stepped in to the bright open stair well. It was surrounded by glass on three sides, open to the outside world.

"Noah," she spoke quietly reluctantly stepping on to the first step. He paused on the fifth and looked back down at her, his eyes focusing on her shoulder. "This ain't a good idea." Their movement would be noticed and seen by anything outside for far too far a distance than Beth cared to consider. Walkers were one thing, surely their vision would not stretch too far, but the cops patrolling the city? They would see the movement easily. Pressing a hand against the glass, Beth realized it was stronger than any of the windows back at the farm, but anything would crack under enough pressure and once the glass broke the Walkers would fill up the stairs leaving them stuck with only three elevator shafts for their escape.

"No other way up there. Unless you wanna be scaling an elevator shaft in the dark?" Continuing up, Beth remained paused until he added. "Only going to the third floor, too low for cops to notice unless they're on the same block. Longer you wait there, the higher the chance is." She scraped her boot on the edge of the door before letting it quietly close behind her – another clue for Daryl. She hoped, anyway and dashed up the stairs as quickly as she could on stealthy feet, following Noah on to the third floor and quickly scoping out the fire escapes or any other possible means of exit.

He led her to a large glass door not far from the elevator doors. One of the doors was smashed, the broken glass still covering the shiny white flooring. They moved past another reception desk, another glass and metal one, but behind that one was a plain door that Noah opened with at least a little bit of caution.

"It's clear," he said, pushing the door open wide and gesturing with an arm for Beth. "Ladies first."

With a smile, Beth entered the offices and was amazed at how different it looked to the rest of the office block. Her jaw dropped slightly as she stood and turned slowly in a circle. Everything within this office was dark wood, old feeling and the carpet was dark but homely feeling. There was a large mahogany desk and big leather chair. The far wall was covered floor to ceiling in books, two leather couches facing each other in front of the books and a small low table in between. Opposite the wall of books was a wall of windows that Beth ignored aside for the light it allowed to pour in to the place. At that moment Beth could almost forget that the outside world existed. She felt as if she could immerse herself in this room and just pretend everything else did not exist. Thought she knew that she did need to remain anchored in reality and she noted a door behind the desk, a simple and plain wooden door.

Beth made a move to open it, to check the other side and a second escape route when she realized that Noah was routing around in the desk drawers. Her brow furrowed and she subconsciously bit her lower lip. "Noah," she asked, "you been here before?"

Pulling two water bottles out of the bottom drawer, he threw one to her and she barely caught it with her knife still out. "Yeah. Before Grady."

"What's through there?" She nodded her head at the door and he smiled slightly.

"Dude who worked here made himself a little den back there. Bed, toilet, sink, bare essentials and no window, but it's comfy for sleeping. Or some privacy."

"You slept here?"

He jerked his head at the two couches and she saw the bunched up blankets, the books open on the low table. It was all covered over with dust. "You and your daddy?"

Noah made a noise that sounded like a confirmation and Beth realized why he had turned rigid when they entered the place; this was the last place he had been with his family and he had lost his daddy. No matter how hard Beth had tried to convince Daryl to check back towards the prison for other tracks, he was adamant that it was a lost cause with all the Walkers passing through, she had never really thought how she would feel seeing the prison again. The place that she had called home for months. No, a place that she had helped make a home, where she had been given Judith to care for, where she had sung to a new family, a growing family that would never be able to replace Shawn or her mama, but it was a family that she loved none the less and she would give anything to be with again. But to see that place again without her family by her side? To see what had become of the place she had been happy with Maggie and Daddy? To see where her daddy had been killed?

Beth could not even begin to comprehend what that would feel like, what Noah was feeling, because any time the thought of her daddy or even Maggie, who she knew deep in her heart could not be dead, came to her she pushed those thoughts away. She would not dwell on the bad, not when she had been running with Daryl, not when she was imprisoned and on guard at Grady and certainly not now, running once more. Perhaps if Daryl had been truthful about staying at the funeral home, about staying there, together, maybe then she would have allowed herself to think about what could happen. It would have taken time, the wounds too raw and the danger of them never healing was still almost too great.

"I, uh, I'll check out the bedroom. Dyin' for a wee, too." As if on cue, she skipped foot to foot for a moment although her bladder was not nearly full. She saw Noah nod as his eyes remained focused on the couches and she went to check out the bed and bathroom, leaving the water bottle on the desk and keeping her knife in her free hand. Straight through the door there was a very small corridor with two doors. Beth opened both quietly, the first led to a small wash room with a toilet and sink, a shower cubicle with a towel still hanging up. There were two toothbrushes and half a squeezed toothpaste on the sink. Ignoring the other door, Beth felt drawn to the toothbrushes and stepped in front of the sink, fingers gingerly reaching out to the bristles on them. Both of them were dry. Of course they were, why would they not be? Noah had given no indication that anything seemed different or out of place from when he had last been here; no one else had found this place to hold up in.

Then her eyes caught a glance of her own reflection in the mirror and she took a deep breath in, tears filling her eyes as she released the breath. It was hard to forget the cast on her wrist, especially when Noah was throwing water bottles at her when she had a knife in her only real free hand. What it did seem was easy to forget were the two cuts to her face, held together with stitches that would dissolve given enough time. Her wrist would heal and even if it healed wrong, no one would ever know. Everyone would see the damage to her face. Everyone that she met would stare at her, have their brows furrow in concern or curiosity and Beth would flush wondering if they were brave enough to ask: _How did you get those?_ Because she would never be embarrassed about having them. You could not be that vain in this world anymore.

Maybe her physical, visual scars would make her family realize she was more than a teen mom because they sure as hell screamed that she was a survivor now.

She blinked the tears away and went to check the bedroom, her eyes used to the darkness of these windowless rooms, but she moved in to the room and turned on a battery powered lamp on the bedside table. A small laugh escaped her when she realized that when Noah had said the room was simple she had taken that to mean a small bed, for one, but it was possibly the biggest bed she had ever seen. There was a wardrobe in the far corner and Beth almost ran to it, hoping that there could something for her to wear other than the awful, and now sleeveless, blue scrubs. The office, on the whole, felt like it belonged to a man and she doubted that any business man in Atlanta would be small enough for their clothes to fit her, but maybe even a plain shirt would do.

Her hand hit the handle of the wardrobe door and suddenly Beth tensed. There might have been a noise. It might have been nothing, but suddenly questions started filling Beth's head. Why would Noah and his daddy sleep on the couches if there was a big enough bed? How had no one else managed to find this place? But the question that echoed most was, had the cops at Grady learnt of this place after they caught Noah the first time?

She did run this time and threw open the door back into the main office, her eyes squinting in the bright light as she came to a halting stop.

Noah was staring down the barrel of a gun, one of the Grady cops holding it and another standing next to him, a smirk on his face as he watched Beth. She almost cursed out loud.

"Now," the cop without the gun said. Beth had not met either of these two. She had no idea who they were or anything about them. That put her at the disadvantage and she had no idea how to try and gain one. "We just knew Noah would come back here, but figured you," he waved his own knife in Beth's direction, "would have known better. Surviving out here for so long. I imagine you only survived this long because someone did it for you." He grinned and a shiver ran down Beth's spine at his insinuation. "Personally, I'm fine with letting you both go."

Beth huffed a skeptical laugh at that, wanting to cross her arms, but she could not with the cast and her knife. "And what will Dawn saw about that?"

"We'll deal with her," the cop promised. "But I can only let you go if you pay me first."

"All I got's this knife. Nothin' else to pay ya with."

"If I remember right, there's a nice big ol' bed back there." Beth's head shook on instinct. "Or I'll take his life, let you walk. Your choice."

"Beth," Noah pleaded and she had no idea what he was pleading for – his life, her innocence? Her heart was thumping in her chest, in her ears and her stomach, although mostly empty, began churning and she thought she was going to bring up all the bile she could manage. There really was only one option, though it was not as if she could even trust these guys to keep to their word, but at least Noah could get her out of the city. Dawn would give up eventually, right? When they got far enough away from Grady and Atlanta, Dawn would stop wasting resources just for the two of them. She was a survivor now, she knew she could and would survive, but she was unsure she could survive alone yet.

There was only one option. She swallowed hard, her mouth dry and the blood in her veins icy cold, and nodded at the cop.


	3. Chapter 3

**Note: Mentions of attempted sexual assault.**

The trail had continued for a few miles as far as Daryl could tell; a trail that he did not really know was hers. Except he did. It was not a naïve hope, or Beth having rubbed off on him, he knew her boot track, he knew her gait. Then there were the random Ds left scratched on surfaces and the broken tumbleweed, knotted and lying on the ground nearby. None of it was a fluke and he knew. There was no hope involved; Daryl knew.

What was just a hope was that she was still okay at the end of it. It was harder to tell within the concrete of a city, the only clue able to give him any sense of time were the broken weeds and from the broken stems, Daryl figured that he was only trailing behind Beth by ten or twenty minutes. Half an hour maximum, but so much could happen in that half an hour. The tracks indicated that she was travelling with someone else and Daryl wanted to read that she was behind the other person most of the time, but he could not be sure on this concrete. There was definitely someone else travelling in the same direction, but Daryl could not tell who was following whom.

It came back to hope again – the hope that Beth was travelling with someone, a friendly someone and not being tracked by the same someone that had taken her. This could all be for nothing if she was being followed, if a Walker happened upon her before Daryl could get there. That alone was a silly thought. Beth had proven her ability to take care of herself even if it had been when Daryl was still pissed and angry, taking it out on her. That had been in a golf club, in the woods where they both knew the terrain at least somewhat more than here in a city. Walkers were always a risk no matter how proficient anyone was.

This could all be for nothing.

All too quickly, Daryl came upon a building with a black car parked outside, a white cross in the rear window and he hesitated, crouching back behind the building he was passing. Her trail might continue on, he knew that, he knew that he should actually check around the area, see if her trail went anywhere else. The car was too much of a coincidence though and he felt it best to check it out before returning to looking for Beth. There was a chance that the car had found Beth in this building. Maybe that second set of prints had been following Beth and had brought reinforcements. There was something about the car, the building; the hairs on the back of Daryl's neck had pricked up.

 _Shit_ , he thought, _what if I am too late and it isn't even the fucking Walkers?_

There was no way he could lose her again. Never again.

Glancing up at the surrounding buildings, Daryl checked to see if he could see any movement and something caught his eyes high on the third floor of the ten-floor glass fronted building in front of him. Waiting for the movement to stop, Daryl dashed across to the open door and snuck inside. All the glass was off-putting to Daryl. There were no shadows to lurk in, no abundance of furniture to crouch behind and anything outside would be attracted to any movement at all. This was not a safe place to be.

Why would Beth have come here? Sure, she probably had never been in a city so large, but she had learnt something from him, hadn't she?

Then it dawned on Daryl that perhaps this was where Beth had been held or was at least potentially being held now. With caution, Daryl checked around the building's foyer, apprehensive and on high alert. There were three elevators, the doors to two wrenched open and a door behind the desks. The third elevator, the one with the doors closed had some scratching sounds coming from behind the doors. Daryl did not even risk banging on it to see if there were Walkers inside. Inside the two open elevator shafts, Daryl could see pretty far up. It was a viable option he nodded to himself before heading to the door, immediately noticing a boot scuff mark on the edge.

Bending down, Daryl gently touched the dirty mark and it was fresh and he was pretty sure it was Beth's. The scuffing made it difficult to identify completely, but it was the right size. The next question he asked himself was did she put it there herself or was it evidence of a struggle? He could not be too late, he could not lose her again. He opened the door and, although the foyer was bright with light, blinked his eyes, squinting them against the bombardment of light from the stairwell. Something else surrounded by fucking glass and as his eyes adjusted, Daryl saw that there were already a few Walkers approaching. He slowly moved backwards and let the door close silently. There was no way he was going to risk climbing those stairs and attracting more, even if it was only for three floors. Glass broke no matter how thick it was.

Back at the open elevator shafts, Daryl slung his crossbow on to his back and sheathed his knife, and started climbing the safety ladder that run up the shaft, jumping up to reach the first rung that was just out of reach for his standing height. It took only a few minutes before he scaled up to the third floor, wrenching open the doors, making far more noise than he had planned. With his hands on the edge of the floor, Daryl pulled his body up, his arms straining under the force. Swinging up his left leg, Daryl got his whole body up and free out of the elevator shaft, pausing for a moment before deciding to leave the doors open. They might need a quick exit and Walkers would not be climbing up or down it.

With his bow back in his hands, Daryl looked around the corridor. All the doors that lined it at varying intervals along the length were closed except for one which was open just a crack. Approaching it quietly and slowly, Daryl leaned to peer through the slightly open door and saw two men on the other side. One was dressed as a cop, his gun on the other guy who was wearing what looked to be hospital scrubs and was on the floor with a bleeding lip. There was no sight of Beth. Even without Beth being visible, the scene seemed clear enough to Daryl. He had never really trusted cops. Why should he start now?

With the toe of his boots, Daryl gently kicked the door open, holding his breath in case it had a squeak. Neither man seemed to see him as Daryl quietly approached behind the cop and knocked him out with a whack of the bow to his head. The bleeding man on the floor flinched away slightly and Daryl aimed the bow at him with one hand whilst the other reached around the cop and found his handcuffs. He slung the cuffs at the black man and jerked his head up.

"Put 'em on," he growled and the bleeding man barely even hesitated before crawling over and doing as ordered. "Who ya here with?"

"No one." The kid was clearly lying.

"You lyin' t'me, boy." It was not a question. "I'm'a lookin' for someone. Only reason ya not out cold is I never trusted no cop."

Except Rick. Always Rick. He should have brought his brother on this mission.

"And I have no reason to trust you."

"But I got reason to shoot ya." The bleeding kid pointed at a closed door behind a large mahogany desk. Ignoring the kid, deciding he was no threat and if he wanted to run, he could as far as Daryl cared, Daryl went to the door and opened it as slowly as he opened the other. There were two more doors, one open to a small toilet and wash room, the other was wide open and Daryl quickly hid beside the door frame, out of view. With a few quick glances of sharp movements to check out the room, Daryl leant his head back against the wall and released a long slow breath and preparing for just a moment. There was a cop pacing back and forth across the room and someone on the bed, on all fours. From the quick glance, Daryl thought the person on the bed was wearing scrubs, their white ass out and Daryl's steady breath increased at what he had seen and needed to do.

It was easy, of course it was, Daryl had done far worse, but he just needed a moment. A quick moment before he would act because that white ass, he was certain it was Beth. He had never tried to look at her naked form all those times that it had been just the two of them, but they had managed to bathe the night of the shack fire. It had not been enough to diminish the smell of smoke on either of them, but they had bathed none the less and Daryl had seen her naked from behind. In the moonlight, he had seen a decent sized patch of darker pigmented skin on her right ass cheek, the same mark that he could see on the ass on the bed just behind him.

That cop was dead.

Daryl took one last look around, just in time to see the cop undoing his belt and zipper, and he acted with all calculations already done. The arrow flew without much effort and hit the cop straight through the ass and groin. A loud thump resounded across the whole room as the cop fell to the floor groaning in pain. The girl on the bed turned.

"Daryl!" It was Beth. The relief on her face must surely have mirrored that which he felt. His eyes quickly fell to the floor and Daryl jammed his thumb in to his teeth as Beth stood up and fumbled at the scrubs, securing them at her waist once more. He looked back up at her and she was covered, a flush on her face, her arms bare and loose at her sides. "Thought it was you."

His eyes flashed to hers.

"Saw ya leavin' that car last night. Knew you'd come. Knew you'd save me."

"Saved yaself, Greene."

"Guess so." Her eyes fell away from his first and down to the cop who was still lying bleeding out on the carpet. Unsheathing his knife, Daryl moved towards the cop nearer his head and went to end him but Beth stepped forward. "I… can I…?"

"Ya don't gotta."

Her breath came out long and shaky as she nodded her head, a tear slipping down her cheek that Daryl could see at his distance. She moved away towards the side of the bed and he saw a knife there. It must have been hers. Maybe she had been planning on using it on him just a few moments later. Spinning his own knife, Daryl held it out to her hilt first and she gave him a watery smile, accepting it over her own and bent down near the cop's head. The cop was still alive, his eyes pained but on Beth and Daryl doubted she could do this. Or he doubted that she should.

It was something that she needed to do. He could see that clearly in her. What had happened to her since the car had taken her? She was wearing scrubs, had she been in a hospital, with cops? Cops that appeared to be in to beating kids and raping girls. The answers scared him. This would help her survive, killing a man, but he hated the fact that she needed to learn this and all he could do was watch her as she did it. With a stubbornness Dixons were renowned for, Daryl refused to look away. Once the knife was fully in, Beth let out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob and she tried to pull it back out. Her hand was shaking and the bone of a human was stronger than that of the walking dead, his own hand moved without conscious thought, covering hers and helping her small, fragile hand.

As she wiped the now free knife on the cop's clothes and handed it back to Daryl, Daryl stood up and asked her with a mumble, "He who took ya from the funeral home?"

Her head shook, eyes on the clean carpet past the man who had been bleeding out. "Not sure. Jus' woke up in a hospital. Alone."

Her eyes flickered up at him where he was watching her carefully. "I chased that car." Their eyes met then and Daryl felt his lungs stutter in something he could not comprehend. "Been four days," he grumbled as if she did not know. Her eyes fell away then and he distracted himself from the awkwardness by retrieving his bolt from the groin of the cop. "Ya been alone wi' these cops, that guy…" He jerked his thumb behind him at the bleeding kid in the room next door.

"Uh-huh." The wide blue eyes were focused on the cop now and Daryl knew she was starting to spiral down in to some feeling that he could not keep at bay. He had no idea how to bring her back.

"That, uh, what he…" He could not find the words and he started angrily pacing across the room. From the corner of his eye, he saw her shake her head.

"No. He tried, but no, he never… None of them ever…"

He nodded his head at that, popping his thumb in between his teeth and biting down just a little bit too hard to keep his rage in check. Then she started crying and his angry steps froze, her quiet sobs filled the silence, exploding across it. Head falling forward until her chin must have been against her chest, he could see and feel her shoulders shuddering and he knew then that she needed something from him, just as he had after the prison and was drunk on moonshine.

Daryl was unsure he could give her anything.


	4. Chapter 4

It was mortifying, but Beth just could not stop the tears. She felt like a child, the child she had remained throughout her life at the farm and prison, the child that she had finally started to feel like she was shedding. An adult would not be standing here crying, trying to find the words to beg the man only a few paces away to hold her. There was no issue with crying over the cop, what he had been about to do, what she had then done to him or even taking a moment to deal with everything that happened at the hospital because Beth knew they were all things she was allowed to cry over. Daryl may not appreciate her crying over the events of the past four days, but it was not a sign that she was weak, it was not embarrassing or childish. How badly she wanted him to hold her, that was embarrassing and only what a child would want. She should not need someone else to make her better. That was not how this world was any more and Beth needed to stop crying and suck it up, survive in this new, fucked up world.

She had been allowed to keep her knife on her, whether it was the cop's foolishness or attempt to always remain safe no matter what he was forcing her to do, all that mattered was that Beth's knife had been near to the bed. Nothing had fully formulated within her mind, but Beth was sure that she would reach for and grab that knife. She was going to kill that cop at some point whether Daryl had burst in or not because she did not trust him to be good on his word. Sure, he had claimed that he would let her and Noah go if she let him take what he wanted, but Beth did not truly believe that. She just needed to keep Noah alive and find a moment to take advantage of.

It would have happened, in the heat of the moment, Beth was sure that she would have prevailed. She was not just another dead girl.

Fresh tears began spilling across her cheeks as if she just could not stop them.

All she wanted was for Daryl to hold her, to comfort her, to keep her up and safe and secure and wanted and loved. All she had wanted was for Daryl to find her and rescue her, but now, she was safe and with him, but he could not give her what she wanted or needed. She remembered crying on that train track at those dead survivors from the prison. They had made it out, too, but lost their lives on those tracks and he had not cared, had walked off, told her they needed to go, his eyes refusing to see her.

"We should go," she said then across the silence of the room, tears still spilling unbidden. She could not bear to hear him say it again. She wiped at her eyes, trying hard to stop crying and moved past him. His fingers suddenly reached out, brushing hers and she stopped moving, hesitating next to him as her heart started beating wildly out of control. He was right next to her and all she wanted was to be comforted, to be held and she could barely breathe properly with tears still filling her eyes. Maybe that was what his fingers were though, that touch however slight, that was him comforting her and she smiled over at him, a weak, watery smile.

"Over now," he said quietly and, God, she had missed his gruff voice and tone.

"We have to get outta here," she continued without moving, desperate to keep his fingers touching hers no matter how weak it was. "The hospital's fulla' cops. We owe them," she added bitterly.

"No. No you don't."

"I can't…" go back? "I got out." Her voice was stronger than she believed it could be in that moment and she straightened her shoulders.

"Ya did good, Greene." That simple praise was all it took for fresh tears to fall, soaking her already wet cheeks. There was only the very slightest hesitation before she felt herself surrounded by him, her face in his chest and one hand on her lower back, the other remained loose at his side as she sobbed in to his chest.

She was crying for the cop, for the life she took, for the funeral home, for the girl's arm, for the dead doctor, for feeling so weak, for all that she had lost and for what had almost happened. Especially what had almost happened.

Everything about him invaded her senses. His heartbeat, strong and regular, steady and loud in her ear. The smell that was unique and purely Daryl – sweat, cigarette smoke, oil and gas. A warmth she had felt that day outside the moonshine shack when she had squeezed him, comforted him. Her arms came up around his back, mirroring that hug from before and her hands pushed in to his shoulder blades, pulling him closer and she thought possibly that his hand pulled her closer at her lower back as his right hand, his dominant hand, reached up and stroked her hair, his chin falling to rest on her head.

"I got ya, Greene. I got ya. I'll take ya back to ya family."

She pulled away then, still holding him tightly but able to look up at him as his hands remained in place, too.

"Found 'em all, girl. Rick. Carl. Maggie. Glenn." There was a slight pause. "Judith."

"No!" she breathed unable to contain the smile or happy tears that started.

"Yeah." His lips quirked up in an almost smile.

* * *

It took them the best part of a day and into darkness before they were anywhere near to the church where Daryl had left the others. Beth had been the one to press them on when he had suggested to make camp for the night. They were following the roads back to the church, the way he had driven, chasing the car with a cross, but Daryl had forced them to stay off the roads, hiding in the tree line and keeping hyper alert. At first he had been worried about Beth's ankle and Noah's limp, but both seemed to be okay at keeping up with him. The biggest problem had been that they had not left Atlanta until the middle of the afternoon, after spending however long trying to convince Noah to come with them and that they would head to Virginia afterwards.

"They'll come with us, I promise ya," Beth had said back in that office and many times along the way as if Noah needed the constant reassurance. In all fairness, Daryl saw it from the kid's point of view. Months trapped in a hospital and turned in to a janitor-come-slave followed by finally escaping only to be told that they had to make a detour, in the wrong direction for a group of people he knew nothing about and cared nothing for. Daryl would be more than hesitant to follow them. Unfortunately, Daryl knew that there was no way that Abraham was going to hang around in Gabriel's church for anything. He had not mentioned it to Beth, but Daryl was already concerned that the group would have moved on. If they had, would Beth still be determined to get Noah home? Would Daryl be okay with losing more time on their trail and would he be able to say no to Beth?

They had continued walking in the trees once the sun had set despite how Daryl had tried to suggest they hunker down and each get an hour or two's rest. He was used to a lack of sleep so it would barely touch him walking the whole night, but he had no idea of Noah's capabilities and with Beth, well, he trusted her to tell him the truth.

"Further we get now, quicker we'll get there," she had smiled any time he mentioned stopping; Noah would always force a small smile when she did so whilst Daryl simply turned his back on the pair and continued on, keeping an eye for the cops coming for them, any other strangers or even simply something to eat. Once they had made it out of Atlanta and on to more wild terrain, Daryl had considered heading off to hunt for something to eat. Anything to eat really. When he had abandoned his family, Daryl had only grabbed Beth's bag. The one that he had managed to keep hold of ever since finding it in the road outside of the funeral home. Before they had left the office in Atlanta, he had thrown it over to her and Beth had simply smiled at him, her blue eyes huge in gratitude as she crammed in a few of the crisp white shirts she had found hanging up near the bed. She had already claimed one of them to cover her arms, over the remains of her blue scrubs. There was no water in the bag, no food either.

Daryl had headed off on his one-man rescue mission with no real supplies. They had the two bottles of water Noah and Beth had found in the office and nothing else. Since they started walking, there had been a few cars along the way with random supplies although not much. They had at least found more water, but nothing in the way of food so Daryl had yearned to go off hunting. If he were honest with himself it was not even about finding them food, he needed to escape the pair trailing close behind him.

For one thing, they both just kept on talking. If he had ever thought that Beth was bad for talking, well, Noah was hardly any better and as the darkness crept on, Daryl had hissed at them enough times to keep their voices down. Beth had caught on quicker than Noah as Daryl stalked in front of them, his brow showing his anger and frustration. Neither of them could see his bad mood. It had also not yet sunk in that Beth was really there with him, just behind him, she was safe and sound. Those few days and nights where it had just been the two of them, just him and Beth, she had been adamant that they would find their family again. He, well, Daryl had not, yelling at her, "Rick… Maggie, you ain't never gonna see 'em again."

Then she had been taken in the dark of night and he had run until there was nothing left in him, but even when he had teamed up with Joe, thrown in to a box-car and been threatened with being eaten, Daryl had been filled with hope and the knowledge that he would see Beth again. That faith that she had, he had found and it had been proven true for him. He was determined to make it true for her after it had already been proven true that there had been other survivors. He would get her back to the others, come Hell or high water. Or at least via Virginia because of Noah.

No matter his faith in finding her, part of Daryl could still not believe it and just wanted to wander through the woods on his own to silence his thoughts. Usually after a hunt, his thoughts would realign and somehow make sense and, shit, did he need to make sense of things. Beth was alive. Beth was safe. And she was walking right behind him.

In the dark, Daryl glanced back at the pair walking side by side, reassuring him that she was still there and it had not all been some amazing dream. They both looked up from the ground, watching their every step and nodded at Daryl. Beth smiled, her white teeth showing in the moonlight and Daryl returned to watching his own path. The reason that he was too reluctant to go and hunt when it had still been light was not because he worried about leaving Beth alone. Though he was reluctant to have her out of his sight; at least walking in front of them he could hear her gentle steps no matter how quiet she tried to be now. Daryl did not trust Noah. Not yet at least.

He was not about to leave Beth alone with Noah. There was no food.

It was still dark when they eventually made it to the church, coming out of the tree line with Daryl in front despite how eager Beth was to just run on ahead. There was something off, Daryl felt it immediately and he caught Beth's arm with fingers curved delicately around her elbow as she tried to move ahead of him. Her eyes were quickly on him as he continued to scan the immediate area and took one more step closer, his hand still on her. Fingers slipping down her arm as Daryl brought his cross bow from his back. There was no one on watch. Or no one guarding well enough to notice their arrival.

"Sumthin' ain't right here." With slow steps and a quick glance behind to check they were both following him, Daryl approached the church with incredible caution. He quickly realized that the front steps were gone, well and truly demolished and the doors were barely there. Standing in front of the doors, he jerked his head up at Beth who banged on the door, pushing it open gently with her fractured wrist as her knife was in her other hand. Before his eyes focused on the doors, Daryl saw her wrist and realized they would need to remove that cast at some point. Bob would be able to help out if the cast made it to Washington. If Eugene was so right about the amazing Washington, there would be other medical doctors there. Not that Daryl believed for one minute that he had any sort of cure.

He walked in first, bow up and ready to fire, he could feel Beth following close behind him. At the altar, after all the pews, he glanced at Beth, his eyes darting to the left and she nodded, heading towards one of the doors as he headed for the other. Immediately he heard Noah follow Beth. Daryl's trigger finger tapped against the bow in frustration. They checked the side rooms and met back in front of the altar, Daryl lowered his crossbow and Beth relaxed her knife arm slightly, holding it limply by her side.

"Ain't no one here," she whispered sadly as Noah walked away back towards the doors. Daryl took the relative privacy to really look at Beth, to look without needing to look away when anyone noticed. She seemed to have deflated.

"No, there ain't," he agreed, his voice gruffer than he intended. "But they were. Left 'em here myself." Waving an arm up in to the air, he added, "Ain't no dead in here neither."

"Door like that when ya left?" Her head nodded at the door and Noah. Daryl looked up at the door, wondering how he was supposed to refill her faith and hope when she was the one that gave it to him in the first place.

"Nuh-uh." Shaking his head, Daryl felt secure enough, but also agitated so put his thumb in between his teeth and began chewing on it. There was blood on the floor near to where they were standing and he pressed his foot in to it. It squelched slightly.

"Someone died there," Beth whispered and even he could hear the fear in it. With a heavy sigh, Daryl wondered if she was about to start crying again. It had taken everything he had to touch her in that bedroom behind an office, even more to put his arm around her and then stroke her hair. To be strong enough to do that, Daryl had never thought it possible. He had not been brought up to understand the concept of comfort let alone be able to receive it, or give it. Something about Beth had changed that when he had felt her arms cover him despite how awful he had been to her moments before that. He had pushed her so hard, he had been despicable. The things he had said, the parts of her that he had attacked and she had retaliated with comfort, something so completely alien to him.

No one else would have called him out on what he was really feeling. No one else would have put up with his shit and held him in response. Nope, pretty much everyone else that he knew either now or before the turn would have punched him, called him out and just left him to suffer. Carol was the only person that could have come close to that kind of a revelation from him and even then, Daryl doubted they would have got to that moment. She would not have felt the sadness as much as Beth. Daryl would never have attacked Carol in the same way. If he had, she would have fought back, attacking back with his own flaws, but not Beth. Never Beth.

"Ain't no bodies."

"Maybe fresh graves out back?" she asked and his eyes flitted to the door again as if that could give him an answer. Her sadness had been pushed away.

"Can check in the morning." Looking upwards towards the high windows, Daryl took a few steps away from her and then pointed back towards one of the rooms. "Sun'll be up in a few. You two should rest up in there."

"And you?"

"When sun's up, lemme rest a few." There was a silence and he looked across at her to see her arms crossed against her chest, one knee bent slightly and an eyebrow raised. "Promise."

"'Kay," she agreed. "Noah," she said slightly louder but still not too loud. "We can rest up for a few." Her head jerked in the direction of the room Daryl had pointed out. There was a couch in there and a desk. Maybe it was a fold out, he considered. At least one of them would be able to rest on the couch, have a half decent rest too. The windows were all boarded up and there was only one door in and out, Daryl would take watch either in front of the altar or nearer the door and keep watch for anything approaching. The others may have simply moved to the little town where they had done a food run. They could come back. Or maybe there had been other survivors from Terminus.

"Where?" he asked, bending down for a moment as he approached them.

"Room through there." She pointed with a thumb over her shoulder.

"Couch for ya, too," Daryl added as Noah came to stand in front of them both with a folded-up map in his hands. "'S that?"

"Map."

Snatching it out of the younger man's hands, Daryl opened it up slightly and saw a note written across it, a road route detailed. The note was for Rick from Abraham. "There's a bus out back. Might be they all left in it."

"But they knew you were out lookin' for me, right?" It was the only detail about their time apart that Daryl had really explained, how he had left the others with the intention of looking for her and then seen the car. That he had then sent Carol back to tell the others before speeding off to Atlanta. Of the rest of their time apart, he had only told her parts. That Terminus and the sanctuary had been filled with cannibals and that they had all found a church, somewhere relatively well stocked and safe at least for a few days. He had not wanted to tell her about Joe, about finding Rick and the fight that ensued, or about how they had wound up in a box-car discovering her sister. One day he might, but all that mattered was that they were all back together before he had headed off in search of Beth and she had certainly not needed to know that no one else had seemed too concerned with her absence.

"Hmm-hmm," he bit at his thumb, dropping the map back on the floor. With a side glance, Daryl could see Beth's eyes sadly looking at him but he had already been able to feel them and it made him uncomfortable.

"Maybe by the time we catch up to 'em, they'll already have finished the cure." She smiled then and reached for his free hand, squeezing it gently. "Wake me before sunrise, 'kay?"

"Hmm-hmm," he nodded.

"Do I need ta make ya pinky promise?" Her little finger on her good hand wiggled in front of her face and he batted away her hand.

"Get," he growled, watching her almost skip away with a smile on her face. Settling himself in front of the alter with just one blanket, Daryl felt uneasy at her alone in the father's office with Noah and no possible reason his mind could come up with was without issue. That was why he had wanted to go off and hunt, why he had settled for the first watch and would probably not wake the others until he was ready for them to set off. After they made a plan of course because he knew that Beth would still want to keep her promise about getting Noah home, but it was not exactly on the route that Abraham had left. Not that it was a complete detour, but with a lack of cars and petrol, with trying to do it by foot, it would add a lot on to their journey.

He grabbed up the map again, settling in to his watch with his crossbow on the floor on his right, one knee bent up and the other relaxed and loose on the floor and he looked at the map. It was only an approximate route, but if Abraham had left separate to Rick, that was two groups that could be on different roads. The longer it took to catch up to them, the more things that could go wrong with any of them. Part of Daryl would happily find somewhere to stay with Beth, including Noah at a push, and just stay there, like he had considered at the funeral home. Except then he had lost Beth from the funeral home and maybe if it had been more than just the two of them, she would not have been lost to him. There might not be some magic number that meant survival, but Daryl was sure it was greater than just the two of them and whoever the rest of their numbers included it needed to be people that Daryl could trust with Beth's life.

If Beth had escaped the hospital with Michonne, Rick and Carl, Maggie, Sasha and Bob, Tyresse and Judith, or Glenn and the girl from the Governor's new people, she would have been fine, of that Daryl was sure. But this Noah guy, Daryl did not know him, could not trust him with Beth no matter how he had protected her in that hospital.

So far he knew barely anything about the hospital and anything he did know, Daryl had picked up from the snippets of conversations Noah and Beth had trailing behind him on their walk and most of that had been from Noah. Beth was keeping pretty tight lipped about the place. From what he could gather, there was a police squad based at Grady Memorial, one doctor and then the patients who were being made to work back what they owed for their treatment. Noah reckoned they were the first two to ever make it out of Grady alive, hearing that had sent a shiver down Daryl's spine and he had headed further in to the tree line with them both close behind.

She had two fresh scars on her face. There had been the cop she had killed, about to lower his trousers when Daryl had stopped him. Daryl wanted to ask about those things, about more than just that. Except he was not sure he wanted to know the answers and it was not usual for him to ask that. After their few nights alone after the prison, he knew she would talk to him when she wanted to. If she even needed to now that she had Noah by her side. Maybe that boy, much closer to Beth's age was what she had needed after the prison. Maybe he could be a success where Daryl had been such a failure.

A few hours in to his watch and Daryl's head snapped towards the door to Father Gabriel's office as it opened and Beth slipped outside, closing the door quietly behind her. With an almost silent tread, because she had learnt a lot from him although not quite enough yet, Beth approached Daryl and sat down on the opposite side to where his bow was resting. He had discarded the map again after checking the route Abraham had shown and what would be the better route to go via Virginia and now Beth picked it back up.

"We can take Noah home first, right? I mean before heading after the others."

He shrugged his shoulders, her eyes firmly on the map, but she knew his response.

"He reckons his home's safe."

"Ain't nowhere safe no more." She looked at him then and he kept his focus on the nail he was picking, glancing at her with a side eye every once in a while.

"But it's kinda on the way," she argued and he knew better than to argue with a stubborn Greene. The feeling in his gut told him more moonshine or a fire would be on the cards if he tried to fight her on this.

"Maybe in the old days," he replied. Though he knew they would take Noah home first, he was going to make sure that it was her decision and that she had all the information to make the right decision. "We ain't even got no car. It's a long ol' walk. Food ain't exactly plentiful."

"But we're with the best hunter this side of Atlanta." She leant towards him slightly, jostling his shoulder with her own and a side glance revealed she had a big grin on her face. He felt like he was being sucked in with praise.

"Dangerous on the road, no matter what road. And it's jus' the three of us. Longer we're out there, the more that can go wrong."

"I know," she admitted quietly. Beth brought her legs up to her chest, hugging her arms around her knees and resting her cheek on top, looking across at him. "You're gonna have to start trusting him."

"Don't gotta do that." His voice came out in a huff, more aggressive than he had intended.

Her eyebrow raised at him as she asked, "Is that why you never went off huntin' today?" A long silence followed and he felt her warm gaze on him the entire time. He was about to send her back to bed when she finally spoke again. "I still want ya ta teach me. That okay?"

With a nod, Daryl cleared his throat. "This is my watch."

"I know." There was a smile on her face and he rolled his eyes with a sigh, which only caused her to smile more. "Couldn't sleep."

He nodded his head, watching her as her eyes fell to lower, avoiding his gaze now. "Ya safe now." Even as he said it, Daryl cursed himself because he had not managed to keep her safe the first time. The others would keep her safe, he trusted that.

"Ya get why we have to take Noah home first, right?" Her eyes met his and he tried to see the answer in them, but came up empty. "He got me outta there, Daryl, before anyone could really hurt me."

He inhaled deeply at that, realizing that no one there had managed to take advantage of her yet his fingers reached out and touched at her cheek scar without conscious thought. She smiled gently at him, shifting her head softly so that his fingers could continue with her second scar. It made him feel slightly easier if the two visible scars were the only baggage she would take away from her captivity.

"Then," she whispered so as to not spook his hand away. She spoke as she would to a horse and Daryl liked the idea of that. His fingers moved further away from her scars, down along her cheek and towards her neck, dangerously close to cupping her face. The only thing not scaring him off was the fact that she was not flinching away. "We'll find our family." His hand hesitated at that, paused with his fingertips almost at her ear and his palm not quite touching her cheek yet. "And I _will_ find out what happened to y'all."

As soft as her words, one hand reached up to keep Daryl's where it was, pressing it against her cheek and she turned towards it, placing a gentle almost non-existent kiss on his palm. Her eyes closed and she rested against his hand.

"I never told 'em. 'Bout our days together. The moonshine, fire or that funeral home."

He felt her smile against his palm, closing his eyes so he did not need to see it. "Good." Releasing his hand, she shifted closer to him and settled her head against his upper arm. "Those things, those are ours. Just ours."

They fell in to another comfortable silence, his hand eventually falling away from her cheek and onto her thigh where it curled around her scrub covered leg. In turn, her hand covered his and he looked down at the juxtaposition of her pale, delicate and soft hand which barely covering his tanned, thicker and rougher one. _They_ were such a juxtaposition.

"Ya sleepin' here?"

"Hmm-hmm."

"'Kay." He squeezed her thigh lightly. "First light, we'll find a car, some supplies, head to Noah's place first."

Against his shoulder, he felt her smile again.


	5. Chapter 5

"Here!" Noah half-shouted across the small interior of the car they had found a few days earlier and used to get them the rest of the way to Virginia. It had still taken a long time as far as Beth could tell. She had seen at least two full moons and Daryl reckoned it had been a month and a half, maybe about forty days. They had only had this car for the final two days. Beth stalled the car as she tried to come to a stop and the other's lurched forward, except for her as she had decided to wear her seatbelt. Driving was new to her, though she had learnt to drive back on the farm, it had been so long since then and she was unused to different types of cars.

"What the fuck?" Daryl grumbled as he almost fell on to the dashboard, woken up by her awful driving skills. At least he was able to get some rest whilst she was driving because Beth had seen him enough at a night time to know that he was not getting enough sleep. Although he had started to warm to Noah, Daryl was still unable to trust him enough to take on a night time watch. Beth was the only one he trusted for that.

"This is my home," Noah declared, rushing from the car without a second glance outside and Daryl cursed again, following the younger man with far more caution. Turning the engine off, Beth closed her eyes for a moment to listen and then slowly opened her eyes and looked all around her, using the car's mirrors to help, too. There were no other sounds aside from Noah's footsteps, Daryl's were as silent as he had been teaching her to be. Daryl had quickly started taking Beth hunting again once they were on the road from the church. When they had vehicles, they would drive for a day, find somewhere to rest up and maybe stay two nights, hunting and checking the area the next day. When they did not have vehicles, they walked along roads, sticking to any tree line they could find mainly, but wandering in to the woods when they needed to get out of the sun or to hunt. Either way, Daryl and Beth would spend a few hours a day in the woods, tracking and she was enjoying learning so much from him.

It was more than that, it was of learning new ways to survive. She wanted to get to a place where she could survive on her own or just be equal to the others. She did not want to be just another dead girl walking. During Daryl's lessons, Noah had made it quickly clear that he was not up for it; he did not have the patience for Daryl. And Daryl did not have the patience for Noah either. Most of the times they would leave Noah on a long stretch of open road, or locked up tight in whatever house or cabin they had holed up in for the night, and they would venture in to denser woods, sometimes making it out with dinner. Or when Noah was safe in their campsite when there were no buildings nearby and it was first or last light, Daryl would show her more, passing over his crossbow. Daryl at least trusted Noah that much. It was going to take them longer to get to Noah's, longer then to catch up to their family and Daryl was not happy about it, he had made that much clear to Beth, but it was the best way to teach her and that was his secondary concern it seemed. Primarily, he was there to keep her safe.

Even when just a few days earlier, they had returned to camp to see Noah and a young lady sitting warily against a tree opposite to Noah, her knife out. "These are my friends," Noah had explained. The woman, Jocelyn as they had later learned, had eyed them safely, but stayed with them that night. She had been with them ever since.

"We should follow, I guess," Jocelyn said from the back seat behind Beth's driver's seat.

"Seems safe enough." Beth looked up and saw Noah already trying to scale the walls that surrounded his family's housing development. There were no guards on watch and it looked overgrown. She bit on her lip and gave a big sigh as Jocelyn opened the door and left the car. Something was not right, but Beth followed her anyway.

Even as Noah disappeared over the wall, Jocelyn started climbing it and Daryl turned to Beth. "Ain't nothin' good here." His hands were on his hips, eyes down at the floor.

"But we gotta go after him," Jocelyn answered, disappearing over the other side, too. By her counting, Beth reckoned Jocelyn had been with them almost five nights and from what they could all tell, she had been alone a long time before that. She reminded Beth of Bob in that respect. It was Beth who had asked her the three questions, without wavering or reacting to the answers, noticing Daryl's slight accepting head nod.

"Boost?" he asked her and Beth smiled, placing her foot in his hands and grabbing on to the top of the wall, heaving herself higher and swinging a leg over. She paused then, partially to survey the housing estate and partially to wait for him. Daryl was up and sitting next to her in a far smoother manner than she had climbed up, waiting next to her. She watched as Noah took off in one direction, a few Walkers ambling around though not many. He must have been heading towards his house, but Beth could already tell that there was no one left anymore. This place had been abandoned and her heart ached a moment for the farm and the prison, mostly for the prison really.

"I'll check out this way," Jocelyn called as she moved away in the opposite direction to Noah.

"We shouldn't let them go alone," Beth murmured from her precarious position with one leg either side of the wall, ready to go either way really.

"Ain't lettin' ya outta my sight, girl," he mumbled in usual Daryl volumes and she smiled despite her apprehension. She looked down at the distance and puffed out her cheeks as she exhaled slowly. "'Mon," he said, meeting her eyes with a nod of his head. "Or I can catch ya?" He waggled his eyebrows at her and she found herself smiling again, this time far more genuinely. Instead, Daryl held out a hand to her and she interlaced her fingers with his, swinging her left leg over the wall and they jumped together.

"Noah then?" she asked, nodding her head in the direction of her friend. It was clear that Noah's emotional state was not the best in the current situation whereas Jocelyn had made it months on her own. The newcomer's ability to handle herself in a strange environment was far more of a bonus than Noah's state. Daryl released her hand and they started walking along Noah's trail, Daryl's bow ready and Beth had her knife out and down by her side, her arm tense and ready whilst her free hand, no longer covered in a cast was twitchy by her side.

Following the trail in to a house, Daryl motioned for Beth to stay behind him and she did, double checking behind them as she did so. The first room that she followed him into had clearly been the site of a fight – furniture knocked over and photo frames askew. There was a dead body in the middle of the room, in between a couch and table. There was a head wound and it was clearly a female. Beth's free hand covered her own mouth in a soft "oh" as she realized the lady was probably Noah's mother. There was a hesitation in Daryl as Beth found her feet glued to the spot and he seemed to hover closer to her but then he was gone in a flash.

Beth wanted to move, hearing the grumbles and chesty breaths of a Walker or two nearby, but something was keeping her at the woman's side. What had happened to the entire estate? It was not Walkers. This was human and it was horrible and heartbreaking.

The commotion grew louder and Beth shook her head, running towards the danger just in time to see Noah standing in the center of a bedroom, tears running down his face as a Walker lay dead at his feet. Daryl was stood above the Walker, breathing only slightly heavier than normal and his knife covered in fresh guts and brains. As she walked further in to the room, Beth noticed the photos on the wall, brothers, twins, some of them Noah.

"Either of ya bit?" she asked, stepping closer to Daryl for a moment, grabbing his wrist and giving him a quick once over with her eyes.

"Nah, don' think so." His voice was thick and deep like this Walker kill was harder than the others.

Turning to Noah, she did more than just a cursory glance across his body, she ran her hands across both of Noah's arms, moved his head with no softness as she checked his neck. She pulled at his sleeves a bit, the collar of his shirt, padded down his abdomen.

"My brother." The sobs started then as his voice broke on the two simple words, his eyes squeezing shut and his face scrunching up in such pain that was such a constant now that it made Beth want to scream and rage. Instead she wrapped her arms around her friend, pulled him in close, one hand at the nape of his neck, stroking down his hair as the other held him against his shoulder blades as she began to make shushing noises and he sobbed on to her. For the longest few moments, Beth could feel Daryl's eyes hotly on her, burning in to the back of her head until suddenly it was gone.

She wondered if it was because Daryl felt uncomfortable with her and Noah embracing. She thought then on when they had left Georgia, how she had run up to his side as they approached the road sign indicating they were leaving Georgia and she had reached for his hand. He had hesitated and he never hesitated when she reached for him when they were alone, usually in the dark. It was because he was such a private man, that he would be skittish in public. The furthest thing from her mind was to make him uncomfortable so she rarely touched him in the daylight and certainly not in front of others.

Except for as they were about to walk out of Georgia. Their drunken game of I have never was on her mind as she had squeezed his hand tight and then tried to step forward. His hand had held hers tightly, keeping her moving away from him and she had looked at him curiously.

"I don't know what happens now," he had mumbled. "No clue ah the terrain here on out, what to hunt, lay ah the land. Don' know the sun or seasons th' further North we head."

"'S okay," she had smiled at him, seeing him immediately relax an inch or two. No one else would be able to notice it, but there was something about her that was in tune with him now. She knew it worked both ways but that he had got there first. "We'll learn it together. Anyway," she had laughed. "I ain't never been to Virginia."

It had been subtle, but he had rolled his eyes at her. "Smart ass." She had laughed again at that, to Noah's confusion over her shoulder and Daryl had added, "Missed ya so bad, Greene."

"Knew ya would," she had replied and so they had stepped out of Georgia together with Noah looking on curiously. Now, holding Noah as his sobs began to quiet, Beth could not remember how long she and Daryl had walked that road out of Georgia holding hands. Just as she was not sure how long she had been holding Noah until finally he pulled away, wiping a sleeve at his nose and puffy cheeks. It had gotten darker in the room and outside, but the sun was still up.

"Think I need some rest," he mumbled and she nodded.

"I'll go check with Daryl about this place." She did not need to though, she already knew that he would have secured the place so that they could stay for the night at least in relative safety. What did surprise her was that Noah's brother was gone, Beth had not heard Daryl remove the body. "You stayin' in here?"

Noah nodded, looking at the unmade bed. "Can't face my room. You or Jocelyn can though. Any of the rooms."

"Thank you," she spoke softly and quietly, a gentle smile on her face as she left the room and went back to the main rooms, where she found Daryl sitting on the couch. The body from the floor was gone, too.

"I buried her an' the brother out back," he answered her unspoken question and she sat down next to him. Immediately leaning against him, her cheek on his chest and an arm came up around her shoulder, his fingers swirling patterns on her upper arm. "All the windows and doors are boarded." Her head nodded against him as she curled her legs up beside her on the couch. One of his feet was on the table in front, jutting his knee up for his free hand to fiddle with the loose threads there. "Ain't safe here though."

"I know."

"Be okay for th' night. I'll keep watch."

"Jocelyn?"

She felt him shake his head. They would find her in the morning, she knew that. "Handful ah Walkers around here. Took a few out when I was diggin'. Lot ah the older ones, they got big ol' Ws on their heads. This place, weren't no Walker attack. Not a simple one."

Shivering at both the cold and his words, Daryl's fingers stopped swirling against her bare arm and pulled her tighter against him. "Think Noah'll mind us takin' some clothes from here? It's getting' colder. Winter must be here soon."

"Nah, don' think so."

"He made it ya know? He made it all this way, he survived Grady an… for what?"

"Ta know," he gruffed simply.

Burrowing into his softness, she squeezed her eyes shut tightly, breathing in his reassuring scent as she marveled at how soft yet firm his chest and arms could feel when she was pressed in to them. It seemed that ever since that night in the church, where she had slept a few hours on him, they had broken down something within him. Some sort of barrier was down. Maybe it had started when he had held her after Grady. Maybe even when they had been drunk on moonshine and she had held him as he broke down in her arms.

It had slowly become a mutual touching, either of them happily initiating contact, both of them really in an equal fashion. Those first few nights after leaving the church it probably had been more Beth initiating contact, but he had never shied away from it, never had he stopped her. In time he had started to lean in to her, reciprocating her movements. If any of the group from the prison could see them now, none of them would believe their eyes. Although, of course, Beth would never presume to be this intimate with Daryl in front of anyone. No, she could not see the day where she reached for him for anything other than gentle hand holding in front of any other eyes. These moments, just like the moonshine, the fire and the funeral home, they were all theirs, just theirs. Forever.

"Sleep," he commanded softly, stroking her hair and she soon let sleep claim her.

The next morning, Beth woke up still resting against Daryl who, once again, had taken the entire night shift, to a noise at the door. His eyes on her, she nodded at him as she moved away and he slipped away from her. Noah quickly emerged from the corridor that led to the bedrooms and they both watched as Daryl glanced out of the gaps in the boards on the window.

"Jocelyn," he murmured, unbarricading the door and letting her in. Once all four of them were in the same room, Daryl continued. "Gather up some supplies. Any food an' water, warmer clothes. We need ta head out."

Ten minutes later, Beth was at the front door of Noah's house as he looked back at it for a moment, saying goodbye for the last time. Now dressed in a clean yellow t-shirt that had belonged to one of Noah's brothers and a pair of jeans from the house next door as Noah had told her there was a teenage girl that had lived there, Beth also had a few spare tops and a pair of jeans in her back pack, a warmer sweater on and a coat tied around her waist. Their bags were packed and they were ready. She glanced first at Noah and then at Daryl, nodding at both. It was time to head out. When they had left the church, she had done so with her arm hooked in to Noah's, excited about trying to find his family. This time, she held on to both straps of her bag, her knuckles pressed against her chest as she felt filled with hope.

She was going to find her family.

Leaving Noah's family estate with a bounce in her step, Beth knew good things were just around the corner.


	6. Chapter 6

After over four weeks of leaving Noah's home, the four of them had stumbled across a derelict high school that had seemed, from the outside a good place to look in. Truth be told, it was Jocelyn who had suggested checking it out with Daryl being hesitant. Sure, the five foot tall fences around the building were all in tact, the gates bolted shut and from their original vantage point, all of the windows had seemed whole, but Daryl had thought the potential within was not enough to warrant the four of them entering such a large site. Noah had quickly followed suit with Jocelyn; Daryl had noticed within a few days of Jocelyn's arrival that he had a major crush on the newcomer. Daryl did not see it himself, but Beth had told him one night as they had kept watch around a small camp fire that Jocelyn was pretty.

It had occurred to Daryl that maybe there had been something between Beth and Noah, but she did not seem put out whatsoever by the newcomer gaining Noah's attention. If anything she seemed slightly relieved. As had Daryl. Not that he would admit such a thing to anyone or even fully to himself because that would mean addressing whatever the hell he was feeling regarding Beth. Not that it mattered what he felt for Beth, or her for him, or her for Noah or anyone for anyone, all that mattered was that Beth was family and he was not about to lose her again and he was going to get her back to the rest of their family. If he had to put up with Noah and Jocelyn making out all night long to keep Beth safe, so be it. After all, Daryl had put up with Glenn and Maggie for all that Winter on the road.

It was Winter that had been Jocelyn's argument after Noah had sided with her. "Even if it's just a few rooms, a block, a floor, that's safe in there, we can hide out there for the Winter." Jocelyn had explained. "There's a row of shops a few roads back. Might be they're untouched."

It had been Beth's nod at Daryl that had him agreeing and with some hesitancy simply over the fact that he was walking in to a high school, much like the school that had been the place that should have been a refuge for him for those few years that he bothered to put up with it. Daryl had hated school. When he was supposed to be there, he would play truant. At first he would be sneaky about it, after a few months he gave up on that and just simply would not show up when he did not want to go. If he wanted to go hunting, he would. Most of the time his father never picked up the phone to hear the messages of his youngest son skipping school. Then, when he did go to school, there was always someone to pick on him. Or at least attempt to, but of course, Daryl always won any fight that went down. Until one day when one guy had snuck up behind him, ripped his shirt open and revealed his scars to everyone. Daryl had flushed red and left the school with a handful of teachers calling his name or trying to block his path. Nothing could have stopped him in that moment.

Maybe if he could have known Beth all those years ago, she could have stopped him.

Beth was probably not even born back then.

There was a secondary fence, inside of the five-foot wooden one, a metal chain fence with large gates, a sports field separating the two fences at the back of the school. They had made their way in easily through a window they found that looked from the outside as if it only went in to a small room with a door the other side. Daryl had opted for breaking in that way because at least then, if there was somewhere safe within the building, they could barricade up that one small room and door to prevent others from following. Inside, from the sections that they had searched, there were no Walkers or dead bodies at all. It really was like a ghost town. It had only been two nights, but they had not yet searched the whole building yet.

It was Beth who, after blocking their entry point, suggested finding the janitor's office as he would hold the keys to the building. "Most ah these doors," she had said, leading them with a hushed voice, just in case, and Daryl had taken the rear. "Should be on some sorta master key an' all use the same one. We find even one ah them, we can secure the entire place."

Her smile then was the same one that she had when she moments later had found the keys and when she had decided to set a shack on fire. It was the eyes and teeth all filled with hope.

Their first port of call with the keys in hand had been the school canteen, where they had come up pretty much empty handed. Anything that had been left was rotted and stunk so bad it even made Daryl's eyes water. All three of them had deflated then until Beth had chirped up, "Need to check out home economics, science and the teacher's lounge. Don't give up hope yet guys!"

It was in the teacher's lounge that the four of them had set up a little camp site having pushed and pulled the comfy chairs around to make beds for each of them, using the little kitchenette as a store for anything they had. From the science department, Beth had found a lifetime's supply of matches and candles, needles and thread, basic first aid kits, sterilizing fluid and water cleaning tablets. In their chemical store, she had found a few trays of spirit burners and pointed out all the other flammable liquids. There had even been a stash of dried pasta, a few tins of food and bottles of pop.

"Why's science got all this?" he had questioned when they had been alone for a moment. Noah and Jocelyn had been off checking the teacher's desks in the nearby classrooms.

"Science."

"Huh?"

"Science ah food and energy, burning stuff."

"Shoulda known you'd know 'bout settin' shit on fire." Beth had smiled at him and he had felt his lips quirk up at either end.

"Yes, I liked science." As she had spoken she had ducked her eyes, looking down at the items in front of her. "You'd'a thought I was a geek."

"Nah." He had bumped her shoulder with his. "Wouldn'a never seen ya in a school." His voice had quietened then. "I never really went."

"I loved it." That had not been a surprise. What had been a surprise was her next statement, given that she had said it after only a few minutes in the building. "Maybe we could stay here for a bit?" Her eyes had still been down, her fingers nervously playing with whatever it was that was closest. "It's gettin' colder." He had not answered her that day, still had not, but he had taken her hand, stopping her from fidgeting and she had released a deep breath and leant against him.

But it was then that Noah made the same suggestion. The four of them were wandering the lowest corridor, to the left of the teacher's lounge towards where the school signs said the Computing and Music Departments were. It was only their third day there, having spent two nights of near perfect sleep in the teacher's lounge and it was possibly the best sleep Daryl had had since the prison. Not that he trusted Noah or Jocelyn any more than he had out in the woods, but there was something safer locked up in the teacher's lounge that only had two doors – one was locked by master key the other by a keypad from the outside. And the windows let out on to a high fenced basketball court. They still slept in shifts, but he was fine as long as Beth was awake when he was not.

She insisted on it now and he did not fight her.

"We could stay here," Noah said as the four of them walked quietly.

Daryl fought a laugh, a dry and sarcastic laugh, but Beth side eyed him so he kept quiet. He did not want to hang around this place. There was still so much further that they needed to go, but Beth did not seem in a rush anymore. He hated how they were all getting comfortable here, ready to settle in for Winter it would appear. It reminded him of the prison, where they had all been caught with their pants around their ankles. Fuck was he going to let that happen again. Unless Beth agreed, because Jocelyn and Noah were like a package now, and then Daryl would have to stay.

"We need to find our family," Beth argued back, shocking Daryl slightly that his head snapped around to watch her.

"Your family maybe," Noah muttered. The tension in the dark corridor rocketed.

"Noah, I've told ya before, you're one ah us, you'll be one ah them."

"Who's to say they're even still okay?" He demanded loudly as the pair came to a standstill, Jocelyn stopped quickly after and Daryl last, a few meters away, feeling as if he were watching one of his Ma's damn daytime soaps. "If nowhere's safe anymore, they aren't either."

"Except I know them, Noah. I know they're alive and safe and waiting for us."

"Really? Waiting for you? Beth, they didn't even come for you."

Her eyes flooded then and her fists clenched by her side as she fought back the tears rather than punch him. Daryl thought of Maggie then and knew that Beth was about to throw a punch.

"There's two ways," Jocelyn interrupted, indicating that they were all stood near a junction in the corridor, where it split off two ways. "Let's take this one." She grabbed Noah by the hand and pulled him away from the argument without anyone agreeing to anything. They kept their hands held together as they walked off and Beth put her hands on her hips, looked down at the floor and huffed out a sigh. Daryl was unsure if it was to push away the tears or release some tension concerning Noah. Was there a jealousy in the clearly evolving friendship?

Without either of them saying anything, they resumed walking, now in the opposite direction to their friends, checking the rooms as they went. It was clear that Daryl and Beth had the computer rooms which he figured was a shame as the others must have the music rooms and Beth could probably do with playing a piano and singing some. Might lift the mood for them all. Probably would not be a good idea though, Daryl reconsidered, given what had happened the last time they had got comfortable and he had listened to her serenading him. He did not want to share that with Noah and Jocelyn.

Daryl was unsure if he wanted to share that with Maggie and the others. Beth had told him she was pleased he had kept their moments to himself, maybe when they found their family again, they could still have things that were just for them. Their nights, walks and hunts alone were filled with gentle touches and quietly whispered words, comfortable silences that Daryl was unsure he had ever felt before. Not in the same kind of way that he felt them with her that was for sure. Not all the time, but quite often, Daryl knew what Beth was thinking or about to say and he reckoned she knew him just as well.

Entering another room that seemed as dead and empty as the others, Daryl remained near the door whilst Beth headed towards the teacher's desk to rummage in the drawers. Apparently, teachers horded candy in the rooms like they were going out of style. Maybe it was all confiscated from naughty kids or designed as a bribe to the worst, either way, Beth was in heaven. In this particular room, another class room with computers on desks across four rows, Beth stopped in the middle of the desks and rounded on Daryl.

He knew what she was going to say before she even started, had been waiting for it.

"Why didn't… I mean, Maggie…?"

"Why didn' she come with?"

"Uh-huh."

"I left without no one knowing. Sent Carol t'tell 'em as I followed one ah them cars. They had no idea where I was goin'." She already knew the story, he had told her one night when she had hooked her arm in to his and asked him about it, batting her eyelashes up at him like he was some kind of damn hero. He could only be the hero if he had managed to stop her from being taken in the first place. It was one of the only times in his life he had wished for a working cell phone and cell service.

"Yeah, but why did you leave without her? I mean, ya said that you decided you were gonna try an' find me. Why didn't ya tell her? Did… did she think I was dead?"

Was he supposed to tell her that everyone else was in the middle of rejoicing at finally being safe and no one had said anything about her? That Rick and Maggie had known Daryl had escaped the prison with her and that she had been taken, but neither of them had said anything since? Or those damn signs Maggie had left for Glenn without a thought of Beth? Or that simply it had been that he needed to find her?

"She did, didn't she? Thought I was another dead girl."

"Ya not though."

"I know." She nodded her head, looking up and meeting his eyes where he was watching her through his fringe. "And when we find 'em, she'll know that, too." There was that damn Beth Greene hope again.

Closing the distance, Daryl hooked his arm around her neck, pulling her close and held her for a moment next to his side, leaning his chin on her head and fighting a sudden impulse to press his lips to her hair. Her free hand moved to cup his arm, keeping it firmly in place whilst her other kept tight hold of her knife. The cast on her fractured wrist had been removed when she fell, tripping on a rock as they had run in the night from some Walkers, and it had smashed open. Daryl had yanked her to her feet by the scruff of her clothes, pulling her until she found her own feet to continue running.

He was so used to this level of contact with her now. It would have surprised him had it all come from nothing, but it had been slow, creeping up on him almost like she had crept in to his life to mean something more than being the farmer's daughter. He realized at some point on the walk to Virginia that he liked her touches, that he would miss it when he went too long without simply just touching her. When they had first arrived at the school, Daryl had still been refusing to rest at night no matter how much he had managed to let Noah in; Daryl regarded the younger man more since seeing him at his home, after Noah had thanked Daryl for seeing to his mother and brother with a great amount of respect. "What we do for family," Daryl had said and he had meant it.

It was on the second night at the school, sheltered from the elements in the teacher's lounge, but still all wrapped up tight in blankets to fend off the cold. And Daryl had fought it, not wanting to give up that control in the dark of night when he was at his most vulnerable, but she had sat down next to him, sitting indian style with her feet under her thighs to keep warm and she had told him to sleep. Of course, he had brushed her off, almost craving her warmth against his chest, only to make her back-down on pushing him, he had tried to convince himself.

"Ya trust me, Daryl Dixon?" There had been no possible answer from him and she had stared him down until he had been the first to blink, which was certainly a first for him.

Her shoulder was too low for him to lie against so instead he had laid down, head on her thigh and her fingers in his hair. That was how he slept longer than he could remember and how he wanted to for the foreseeable future.

A sudden blare of music almost deafened them and neither of them even hesitated from breaking free of his grasp and rushing towards the sound, back towards the t-junction where they had separated from Noah and Jocelyn. As they made it there, Daryl with his crossbow nocked and ready, Beth with her knife arm in an offensive position, they risked the smallest of glances at each other after seeing Noah and Jocelyn running towards them at full speed, a horde of at least thirty Walkers ambling behind them. Neither of them needed to say anything, but they both spoke at the same time, as their feet both started moving.

"Run."

Running along the main corridor of the school rather than in to what could have been a dead end of the computer department, the pair made it through one set of double doors and continued past the lounge door and to the next set of double doors. Both double doors were able to be locked with the master key, one of each having a bolt in to the floor and ceiling too. They turned almost in unison, because although Daryl could easily out run Beth, there was no way that he was ever going to run ahead of her again and he possibly was never going to push her ahead of him either.

"What the…?" Beth asked through her heavy breaths as they watched Jocelyn make it through the first set of double doors and bend over to bolt the left hand door. Noah was falling behind, but he still had some space from the Walkers. "Come on!" Beth screamed.

Time seemed to slow as all Daryl could do was watch, he was not fast enough to get back there and do anything. Noah stumbled and fell to his knees. There was a good one-hundred meters between the two double doors, but Daryl could see the Walkers getting closer, fighting over each other to reach down for Noah. Jocelyn was close enough to be able to help. There was still time.

In contradiction to the fractured speed of Noah falling, the Walkers gathering and Beth's shouts and pleas, words that Daryl could no longer make out, Jocelyn slammed the other door shut and fumbled with the keys to lock it at both ends, locking Noah out.

Then all Daryl knew was that Beth was screaming and rushing forward, her knife in one hand her master key in the other.


	7. Chapter 7

Despite all the running she had done, at the farm, the winter after the farm, those days after the prison, Beth felt as if she had never run as fast as she was running what could only be a hundred or so meters towards Noah, trapped behind locked doors. Desperately she wanted to drop her knife, to use one hand to steady the other where she was fumbling amongst four fingers and a thumb to get the master key ready. When they had checked the janitor's room, there had been two sets of key chains, both with a master key on them, but also a good deal of other keys. Some were for external doors, for specific lockable cupboards and a few of the rooms which were not on the master key. They were heavy and cumbersome, but Beth and Daryl had each taken one. The other master keys, Noah and Jocelyn's, had been found in teachers' drawers, some attached to lanyards with ID badges and other keys, possibly the owner's house keys. Daryl had offered her one of those, but Beth had not wanted to know anything about the owners.

Beth was almost at the doors, almost along side Jocelyn who seemed to be standing immobilized, when suddenly a warm arm clamped around her waist and pulled her straight off her feet. The keys dropped from her hand as she immediately began clawing at Daryl's arm. She began to scream at him to let her go, but if anything his grip only tightened.

"Music room," Jocelyn huffed between rapid breaths. "Opened the door and the music started up. It was full."

"So you shut the fucking door?" Daryl demanded and something about his tone surprised Beth. He sounded angry.

"I panicked," Jocelyn sobbed as something banged up against the window in the door.

It was Noah's face, pressed up against the glass, his eyes full of pain as the Walkers surrounded him, blood squelching across the surface and quickly soaking through the carpet underneath. Beth flinched back minutely and then she lurched forward, a fresh fight within her as Daryl's forearm held on tighter and tighter, holding her firmly in place. As she struggled, her t-shirt rode up slightly and his skin was on hers almost burning her in annoyance for not releasing her.

"C'mon, need to move back." He half pulled, half carried her along the corridor, past their lounge and base, and to the next set of doors. It was enough to give them enough space away from the Walkers. Once they were all through, Beth felt Daryl nod his head at Jocelyn to close and lock the doors. After the longest moment, Beth finally tore her gaze from the doors, knowing that Noah was still so close yet he was already gone, and looked at Jocelyn.

The older woman was leant against the wall, bent forward with her hands on her knees and still trying to catch her breath. Beth's own fingers were loosely gripped around the hot and bare forearm that had still not released her. She let the knife fall from her hand, gripping that hand around Daryl's arm, too. That was how little he trusted her at that moment, even now, with two sets of doors between them, because Beth was still on the verge of running back through both to rescue Noah. That or go for Jocelyn's eyes.

No matter how much she panicked, how could she have locked the damn door? Beth did not understand. They could have out run them. There were stairs just around the corner, for fuck's sake, there were a multitude of doors that they could have closed further away. Jocelyn could have continued running, given Noah more of a chance. But she had not and now Noah was… gone. Beth hated to think of any other word for it. And her last words to him had been angry and sad. Didn't he know that he was part of her family now? That they would have all been safe together with the others? They had shared months together in the prison and Beth knew that they would all find somewhere new to do that, her sister and Glenn, Judith, Rick and Carl, Daryl and her, and Noah. He had a place there, with them. With her.

"What about our stuff? All our supplies?" Jocelyn asked across the silence.

"Need ta leave some space. Let the Walkers back away. But… we can't stay." Twisting in his hold to look up at him, his eyes met hers. "Some ah them have Ws, like at Noah's."

"What?" Jocelyn asked.

"What's it mean?" Beth asked, their eyes still locked. The answer was on the tip of her tongue, but her foggy, confused, grief stricken mind had locked them out.

"Someone put 'em in there, maybe? Loud music could be to draw 'em in, 'cept when there's fresh meat."

"Someone marked them?" Beth asked, moving away slightly, but keeping her hands on his arm, touching him was all that was keeping her from falling down.

"Yeah. An' I do not wanna find out why. C'mon, we'll hide out somewhere, try an' get some supplies if it gets safe."

Beth sagged against his arm then. It had never been a real plan – to stay at the school indefinitely, but maybe a couple of days could have become weeks, maybe a month or two. The primary concern and goal was still her family, Maggie, but the thought of a cold winter on the run, just like the last, Beth did not want that.

"Up to that third floor teacher's lounge?" Jocelyn asked and Beth felt Daryl nod, though Beth refused to move for a long moment. It was the lounge that Daryl had wanted to use as their base at the beginning. Within the science department and on the top floor, the windows gave good vantage points across the grounds, but it had been too small for the four of them.

"No," Beth whispered hoarsely, her throat hurting from her screams. There were still no tears. For the first time she met Jocelyn's eyes and saw only remorse and guilt there, but Beth could not forget just yet. She honestly had no idea if she meant for Jocelyn to leave for good, to give them a day or two, or what, but she seemed to get the message, nodding and walking away.

"Ya good?" Daryl breathed near her ear and she nodded, feeling his arm falling away but neither of them moved, his chest radiating heat through her back and her head fell back to rest on him, her eyes closing. Arms now free, his hands came to rest on her shoulders. More heat flushed through her polo to her skin and she guiltily wondered about it being just the two of them again. "C'mon," he said, pulling her slightly by the shoulders and reluctantly she followed.

Shifting his crossbow so he was armed and ready, Beth bent down and picked up her knife, readying her knife hand even though she knew she was too distracted. She knew he knew she was too distracted so when he had her settled in the small teachers' lounge, he left her alone. It was in between two science laboratories and had three points of entry. This lounge only had three comfy chairs, barely long enough for Beth to fit on let alone have been comfortable for all four of them. With all the lockable doors sealed and barricaded, Daryl left her to check how secure the ground floor was and, she guessed, see about getting their supplies.

Hugging her knees up to her chest, Beth rested her forehead against her knees and closed her eyes. She wondered then, how long the Walkers would give up and go back to the music source. Then, how long would it take for Noah to re-awaken and become one of those things?

Very quickly the adrenalin rushed from her system and Beth fell asleep, waking up to a click and scraping of furniture. Looking up sleepily and completely off guard, Beth's cheeks flushed in embarrassment; how could she have been so foolish as to have a nap when the only protection she had were a few walls and well placed tables? Thankfully it was Daryl replacing the furniture barricading the outermost doors. Both laboratories and lounge had doors on the main corridor, then a door from each laboratory in to the lounge, which was in the middle.

"Sleepin' on the job?" There seemed to be humour in his voice, but Beth felt too guilty to hear it. Guilty over having a nap, over sending Jocelyn away, over fighting with Noah, over wanting to be alone with Daryl, over wanting to stay somewhere.

"Don't start, Daryl!" she snapped, instantly regretting the flicker of pain on his face. "Sorry," she apologized. It was then that she noticed the bags at his feet. "Ya got some supplies."

"Hmm-hmm. Crept in th' normal door. Some stuff was already gone. Guessin' Jocelyn's gone."

There was the guilt again.

"So the Walkers didn't notice ya?"

"Nah, they'd backed off some. Music might'a' attracted 'em."

"Ya really think…?" She was going to ask about the Walker trap, if people had really put them there, why he thought they would do that, but she already knew. Someone would have written a warning if it were not a trap. There were plenty of pens in the school. They had been stored and used to attack Noah's home, maybe other places too.

"An'," Daryl hesitated, chewing at his thumb nail. "I found Noah. His body. I got him outta there, 'fore he could…" She nodded forcefully to stop his words. "Thought I'd bury him. Wanted to check on ya first."

"I'll do it." She forced her weak legs to stand up and she met his eyes defiantly.

"Found a few spades in the boiler room."

"I got this."

As she walked past him, she noticed his eyebrows raising.

"Two spades, two people."

"Said, I got this." The emphasis was on her. Solo.

"Beth-"

"Stop, Daryl."

"Stubborn as yer sister, Greene," he muttered and she angrily whirled on him.

With a finger pointing in his face, she near yelled at him, "I told ya they were still alive!"

"I should'a' believed ya."

"Yeah, ya should'a'."

"Lemme help."

"I don't need ya help! I can take care'ah myself. Don't need you, Daryl Dixon." She felt and heard him stop following her then, just near to the football field where Noah's covered body was lying and the two spades were propped up against a wall. With only a slight hesitation, wondering if he had given up or not, Beth picked up a spade and began to dig, refusing to glance back at him. She did not mean it at all. It had only been three days. Three days alone with Daryl, running for their life and wondering if they would ever see their family again, wondering if maybe they were the only people left in the world. But those three short days had come to mean the world to her. She had been mourning the death of her daddy and the loss of their home, clinging to a hope of finding her family and she still was, deep down in a part of her, but time seemed to move quicker since the turn and during her days at Grady, it had been Daryl that she had mourned for and missed. Not her Daddy, not her home and not her sister, just Daryl. He was the only person to have seen her as an adult, treated her as such most of the time and knew what she could be capable of. Maggie would never have let her walk off to a golf course in search of alcohol. Maggie would have stopped her, made her always walk a step behind and took out every Walker within biting distance, but Daryl gave her a chance.

Yet in those three days alone with Daryl, those three days where she had felt and eventually, kind of, been treated like an adult, Beth had learnt so much from him that it had been enough to keep her alive and sane whilst captive at Grady. No, she was not at Daryl's level yet, but with the additional training he had given her, Beth could hunt and track better than she could ever have expected and, yeah, she did believe that she could make it on her own, that she did not need Daryl Dixon to save her or keep her safe. But none of that meant she did not want Daryl by her side.

She was so mad at herself. She was better now. She was able to survive and live. So how had she still managed to lose Noah?

Pausing in her digging, wiping at her sweaty forehead with her sweaty hand, Beth looked up and realized that the sun was starting to set. The day was almost over and then there would be nothing to remind them of Noah. There would be no way to remember him a year later. There would be no birthday reminder that he had ever lived. She did not even know his last name, or the year he was born, what month even. How old had he been when he died? No one knew much of anything any more, a gentle sob escaped her as she realized this and exactly how much she missed that aspect of normality. How would they even get it back again? Would someone have to note down the times of the sun rise and sun set every day until they got back to the beginning just to figure out the longest and shortest days?

With a sly side eye, Beth checked that Daryl was actually still nearby, which she knew that he was because he would never leave her again just as she would never leave him or let him leave her, nonetheless she felt the need to check. Most of the school was three floors high except for one block which they had barely looked in, which was only two. It was the only block with an external fire escape – something which Noah had pointed out as a safety feature and ease of escape. Daryl had preferred the height advantage of any other part of the school and to primarily set up on the ground floor so that windows were a viable escape option. Daryl was sitting on the top of the fire escape, his legs dangling over the edge and Beth could just about make out the cloud of smoke surrounding him.

Resuming her digging, Beth was sure it had only been a few minutes when Daryl was suddenly behind her and she tensed awkwardly. He passed her a bottle of water and she took it, trying to relax with him. With just a nod of her head, she thanked him and then she rolled her shoulders, moved her head side to side as all the muscles in her body protested.

"Hurt like a bitch come morning."

"Hurts like a bitch now." He huffed a laugh at her and she asked him then, "Whatcha want?"

"Hole's dug, ain't it?" Squinting her eyes, Beth watched as he moved towards the covered body and bent to pick up one end. "Ya helpin'?"

He could do it on his own, she knew that he could do it with an element of grace, too, unlike her, but he was offering her help to finish the job respectfully. Nodding, she reached for and picked up the feet, wrestling internally with whether or not she should be thinking about it as a body or as Noah. Suddenly a hundred and one things flooded her mind. She wanted to ask Daryl if she should be shut off to the body in front of her, if there were a way to remember Noah. Would Noah fade from her memory just as her Daddy already was? Would this day simply blur in to all of the others since the dead started walking? Would she even remember the name Noah a few more months or days down the line? Did they even have more months and days down the line? Was she just a hopeless fool, still that naïve and useless child who was good for nothing other than raising someone else's baby?

"'m sorry," she grumbled doing her best Daryl impression. "I jus'…" She sighed and continued as they other wise silently both began filling in the grave. At least Noah was getting a grave; her daddy never would. "He was gonna leave that hospital 'fore I got there, already had his plan and lemme tag along. Well, I got the key he needed, but he could'a' got it on his own." She looked down then, admitting, "I let a man die for it." With a shake of her head, Beth refused to linger on it and the other things she had yet to tell Daryl. "I wouldn't be here without him an'… an' maybe he'd still be alive."

"Out here? Alone?" he scoffed. "No one can. I wouldn't'a."

"Really?" she asked, truly amazed by his statement – this was Daryl Dixon.

"Uh-huh." His eyes were still on the freshly filled grave and he moved to put some stones at the head of it, the only marking that Noah would get and the only thing that would keep him in this world. It had always been the same though, surely, even before the turn – people were forgotten when they died, lucky to be remembered by the next generation, maybe by a second. Perhaps the world had not changed that much.

"You could'a'," she said strongly then, taking hold of his hand. He did not fight her action. "Told ya, ya gonna be the last man standing." There was no doubt in her mind, Daryl was made for this world.

"Don't wanna be," he mumbled, not an argument, just a statement.

"Why?"

"I'unno," he shrugged

"Don't I'unno me." Her eyes met his through his dirty bangs and her own frizzy curls and suddenly they were both back in that funeral home, her waiting for him to answer her and him just looking at her. She saw the same thing in his eyes, knew she felt the same as that night. And they were both remembering the candlelight and the silence and the dog and the Walkers and all the pain that followed, but they were also remembering the moment before the pain, the moment where his eyes were open to her and she had sat there, blue meeting blue and said very simply, "Oh."

"'ve been alone, don't like it," he finally responded and she smiled a little at him, ducking her head and trying to pull her hand away from him to head back inside. He kept a gentle hold on her hand. "'ve been with the others and didn' like it." Looking back across at him, glancing at their joined hands on the way, his eyes had not left her and were staring at her with such a great intensity, it made Beth catch her breath. "Needed you."

Her mouth was dry, but Beth forced a swallow to try and lubricate it as she smiled genuinely and said, "Ya got me." There was a squint in his eyes then and she squeezed his hands. "Forever," she promised him and he let out a breath, his shoulders relaxing and she tugged at his hand, leading him back inside where they could have one last night in warmth and hopeful safety before they needed to run again.


	8. Chapter 8

"Ya caught us dinner yet?" he called across the small clearing and quickly heard her stomping back over to him.

"Not with all y'all's shoutin'. I mean, scarin' off my hunt an' callin' Walkers over."

He heard movement, knew what it was and where it was coming from, but he waited, not moving from his spot on the forest floor, not even a flicker of his eyes to check. It was coming from his 2 o'clock, maybe 3, she was standing at his 9 o'clock, acting all pissed. She loosed the bolt without barely pausing, looking at him straight after before the Walker could even hit the ground.

"So, ya can hit a moving target," he teased.

"I'd'a got the damn squirrel if ya hadn't 'a shouted."

"Still sittin' here hungry, Greene."

"Bite me, Dixon."

He quirked an eyebrow at her then, a smirk on his lips, but then he nodded his head towards his 12 o'clock. Her eyes followed his and she saw the movement of the trees as two Walkers emerged. Sliding the crossbow to her back after using her only arrow, Beth unsheathed her knife as he remained sitting there, one knee up with a foot flat on the floor, the other leg straight out in front of him, one elbow rested on his bent knee and both hands were playing with his own knife. She put both Walkers down and walked towards him, the sunlight shining across her left hand side. She detoured to pull the arrow from the first Walker and then walked directly towards him, streaks of blood across her jeans, her shirt, face, and even her hair and he had never seen her as radiant, never seen anything as jaw dropping stunning and he could watch her, the gentle sway of her hips, her chest moving in time with her steps. He had never seen anything like her, never known anyone like her and he knew he never would again.

Even with her new scars, the physical and emotional from Grady, the ones he still knew nothing about because he was never going to pry, she was unique in this world and Daryl wondered if she had been in the old one, too. She was something refreshing in the world as it stood. Probably would have been before the turn. She had said something, over Noah's grave, about letting a man die for a key. There had been remorse on her face, but no guilt. There was no indication that she felt whatever she had done burdened her, just a simple fact that saddened her. It hurt him none the less, the list of things that saddened her. Yet she still never gave up.

Through Noah's death, the prison falling, her daddy, leaving the school, the fear of whoever was carving Ws on heads, well, she just kept on going and she kept him going, too.

Passing him the bow, either to nock it or take it back because they needed to move on, he was unsure, took it from her and remarked, "Still hungry, girl."

"Do it yourself, Mr Dixon." She smiled across at him as they began walking in unison and he felt his own lips twitch. They did need dinner and somewhere to stay the night.

It had been two weeks already since leaving the school, two weeks of sleeping in the cold woods which were growing colder by the night and Daryl easily found himself craving that last night in the school. They had been in the science lounge, he had been prepared to take the first watch after watching her digging all day long, but she had refused, fought him and she had won.

She always won.

It was why he had left her to dig Noah's grave alone, watching from a nearby fire-escape where he had a good 180 view across to watch for any danger – dead or alive. If he had have fought her to help, she would have fought back and it would have been worse than simply watching her win. Her mood had been foul, Daryl had figured it was mainly losing Noah, but also everything else that he always figured she never gave up from. No matter how strong any of them were, all the shit that they all went through was going to take a toll and as far as Daryl was concerned if all it meant to Beth was to have a bad day and a few foul moods, to say and shout hurtful things at him, well, he would take it and push it all away afterwards.

He had made his own fair share of negative comments to her, drunk on moonshine, she was allowed to get her own anger out. Better than keep it all squashed down inside until it all became too much within her own mind and she sought some other escape. No way was that going to happen on Daryl's watch.

By the time that the sun was setting, Daryl reckoned that about two or three hours had passed and they now had three squirrels ready to eat when they found somewhere to make camp. Beth had caught one of the squirrels herself. He had been pretty proud of the catch, of her. As they continued walking, Beth's gentle humming from beside him was something he enjoyed after all these days, despite how silence had been his default just a few weeks earlier.

With a gentle hand to her hip, he put a finger to his lips and she stopped humming. He could still hear humming, the same tune, but this time from a much more masculine tone and he saw Beth's look of confusion and then embarrassment. He made sure that his bow was ready and Beth put her hand on her knife, pulling down her jeans ever so slightly. Rolling his eyes at her, she shrugged repeating to him with her eyes that there were still good people out there.

At least she was wary now, he thanked, knowing that she was right.

Okay he should never have trusted Joe and his men, or even the shits at Terminus, but from the little he had seen of Abraham and his people, they were good people. And, yeah, the people in power at Grady had been warped good people, but Noah had been good people, even Jocelyn had been. Even good people made mistakes, panicked. What would this person be?

They came in to a small clearing and saw a man sitting on a fallen tree, just starting up a small fire. The only visible weapon Daryl could see was a staff weapon, there did not seem to be anything at his waist. There could always be a knife in his boot.

"Gotta nice voice there," the man remarked without looking up until the fire was lit. "But I could hear ya for a bit. So can others. Some nasty things out here in these woods."

"Good thing we can take care a' ourselves," Beth replied.

"You're welcome to join me," he offered and Beth took a step forward, Daryl side-eyed her and she flashed him a small smile continuing. "Thanks." Beth sat down and the man offered them both some food and water. Declining, she offered him some of their squirrel whilst Daryl walked the perimeter a few times, added some noise makers and then reluctantly sat down next to Beth.

"You headin' anywhere?" The man asked and Beth hesitated. "Sorry," he apologized as if remembering manners from before the turn. "The name's Morgan."

"Beth," she smiled, shaking his out-stretched hand. He offered his hand to Daryl next and Beth spoke, "This is Daryl. He's not much for touching. Not really headin' anywhere," she gently lied. "We got family we're looking for, but no trail to follow."

"Headin' to Washington myself, but there's people out here, not just Walkers. Just a friendly warning."

"Ya seen any Walkers with a W?" Daryl pointed to his forehead, where they had seen the W on others. They were his first words since meeting Morgan.

"Nope. Seen people with it drawn on."

Beth and Daryl exchanged worried looks, but said nothing more.

"Gettin' dark," Morgan said. "I'm gonna settle down for the night. I'll be off before sun up, but you're welcome to rest here." Without another word, Morgan smiled and settled himself down to sleep. It was only a few moments before his breathing was gentle snores and Daryl raised an eyebrow at Beth, who simply shrugged her shoulders before reaching in to her bag. Pulling out two blankets, she put one over Daryl's lap and covered herself with the other one, laying her head down across his thigh as he pulled the blanket up a bit to cover his lower torso. It was getting colder now so he was wearing a sleeved shirt and he could have been more comfortable with the blanket over his shoulders, too, but his legs needed the warmth more. Plus, the mild level of uncomfortableness that the wind created across his shoulders was more than enough to keep him from falling asleep. Without much real thought, one of his hands began to stroke the wispy hair out of her face, soothing the pair of them although she was already asleep.

She could be out within a few seconds if he was close enough, but could take forever if they were on opposite sides of a camp. She slept deeper, too, he could tell from her breathing and, whilst he slept easier by her side, Daryl never managed to sleep any deeper no matter the situation.

The moon was high in the sky when Daryl decided it must have been half way through the night, Beth must have been asleep for a good five hours and he had barely even moved, just the occasional twitch of his legs, which never stirred her. He kept his hands busy, fiddling with his knife, checking over his arrows in the dim moonlight, but he mostly kept still – all the better to hear any one, or thing, sneaking up on them. And to keep an eye on the man sleeping not too far away from them. What about Beth and Daryl had given that Morgan guy the easy confidence to simply fall asleep near to them? He was either incredibly naïve or incredibly dangerous. What if it was this guy that had been marking walkers with a W, him who had stored them in the school for some inhuman motive? Ever since they had seen a second incidence of branded Walkers, Daryl was on a higher alert setting, more wary and observant of his surroundings. He had been caught out at the funeral home; it was not going to happen again. To have made it this far in the world turned to Hell, Daryl knew Morgan was dangerous and he was reluctant to awaken Beth for her watch.

If he woke her, she could be at risk from the clearly dangerous Morgan, but if Daryl remained awake all night then he might not be on his best form come morning and he felt that he would need to be to go up against Morgan. The decision was taken from him when Beth began to stir, rubbing her cheek in to his thigh and then letting out a gentle sigh. He had not even moved and she had woken, her body clock was synchronized with his now.

"Your turn," she whispered so close to his ear that the words ghosted over his skin, tickling the hairs there.

"'m good," he grumbled, looking over at Morgan who had yet to move all night; he was out cold.

"Your turn," she repeated staring at him until his eyes met hers. "Ya trust me?" She knew the answer and he knew that she was going to win. Again. Always.

With a nod, he huffed out a breath and she smiled largely, her teeth catching the moonlight. On impulse, he pushed her hair back behind her ear, letting his palm rest against her cheek, cool from the night air. Morgan stirred then, possibly from their hushed voices in the silent night, and Beth turned to look across the camp, her lips brushing his palm causing his fingers to flex and she snapped back to him.

"Ya need t' sleep."

Nodding, he exhaled again and her lips parted slightly as if to breathe in his breath. Then she leaned in, meeting his eyes and hesitating for just a moment as their eyes locked before she brushed her lips against his ever so lightly that he barely felt it. His fingers tightened at the back of her neck regardless and he was not sure why, was unsure what he hoped it would achieve or even what he wanted to happen next. Moving slightly, her hand resting on his thigh to keep her balance, Beth kissed his cheek, firmer, with more definition and said, "G'night, Daryl."

When he woke up, Morgan was gone from the camp and Beth was quite relaxed behind him, one hand still in his hair. Daryl had not even heard Morgan get up, let alone pack up and leave. Was Daryl getting complacent or was Morgan truly that stealthy?

"Ya do that all night, girl?" he asked with a hoarse voice as he sat up, working out some kinks in his neck. Beth's lap was more comfortable than the cold, hard ground or a balled up bag, but it was still no feather pillow. Not that Daryl knew much about feather pillows or women's laps at all, but nothing seemed to stop the neck kinks.

"Keeps me awake and alert." Dashing forward, she used the same hand to ruffle his hair like he were a child, grinning as she did so.

"Gerrof," he growled, causing her to laugh slightly.

"He headed north," she nodded in the direction and Daryl ducked his head in the direction, hiding the flush that was spreading up his ears at his pride in knowing her directions. It might have been something built in for himself, truly from his childhood and learning just as she was now, a good decade older than he had been. He could see the broken branches from his seated position.

"We'll go east a bit, separate our paths." They were headed north, too. There was a chance they would meet Morgan again and it troubled Daryl. For a moment he considered if they should follow Morgan's tracks for a bit, check he was heading north and he was not planning on sneaking up on them later.

"There are good people still, Daryl," she reminded him as if reading his mind as she packed up what meagre belongings they had and they set off, east, her hand slipping easily in to his.

They were heading in to the thick of Autumn and then Winter would sneak up on them in a matter of days, shorter days. And, as the nights got longer and colder, it would become more prudent to sit and wait for the few hours of light the world provided them. They needed warmer supplies, maybe better shelter, though he hated the thought that maybe they needed to find somewhere to camp out and see the winter through, let it pass without freezing them in their sleep. That winter after the farm had been tough and there had been a group of them, in terrain they knew at least sometimes. Now all that they had were each other and Daryl wondered if it was enough. Michonne had told him on one of their early runs still searching for the Governor, about the winter she had spent with Andrea and how ill their mutual friend had become. Daryl did not want to risk that on Beth.

He could not risk losing her, not just because of how it had broken him when Grady had taken her, more because he did not want to be the last man standing, alone. Never alone. Having spent his life alone, aside from when Merle popped in, brought havoc and then fled, Daryl had come to know more than simply being alone in his months with the others. Not so much at the quarry, the few days he had been there after Merle had vanished leaving behind just his hand, but after the farm, at the prison. The Woodbury folk had probably never realized just how much effort Daryl made with those he considered family. When Rick had told him that he was his brother, Daryl had felt it, too, that bond and with the others, too. And he did want to be back with them, he did, but he needed to get to them safely with Beth intact. It had not felt like the family he had grown to know in the church without her so even worse than being alone; being surrounded but without Beth.

But getting back to their family played at the back of his mind sometimes. In the dark of night when she was asleep and gently snoring on his thigh, his hand in her hair or on her shoulder screaming at him that the intimacy they now shared was almost constant. The hands that would reach for each other as they walked. How his head would lean upon hers as she rested on his chest. The way they shared their nights. The silent communication where one look, one shoulder shrug, one glance could be a whole conversation. How would any of the others understand that? Would they look at the pair and wonder what he had broken within her to temper her talkative nature? What he had done to turn her in to a survivor, capable of tracking and hunting almost as good as him? Would they even notice the changes she had made in him? Would they pull her from him and keep her away from the dirty old redneck who was only good for keeping them all fed?

"Look," she breathed, squeezing his hand some time just after lunch. There was a building up ahead and through the trees. Maybe there would be something useful there, something warmer.

Maybe it could be where they rode out some of the winter.

They approached the small cottage cautiously, Daryl slightly ahead of Beth. She banged on the closed door as he glanced in through a nearby window. Nothing looked out of place inside, literally, it all looked neat through the glass and nothing moved towards the noise or motion so he nodded at Beth. With her eyes turning downward, Beth pushed on the door handle and the click of the door releasing and opening sounded deafening in the silence of just their breath. He moved in first, the bow armed and up as he peered over it, scanning across the interior. They seemed to walk straight in to one room that spanned the length of the cottage, but only about half of the width. There was a couch and small table, bookcases and a fire place, a window on the wall next to the front door and another opposite it overlooking the back of the property. Near the back wall, there was a door on the only interior wall, which Daryl assumed led through to some sort of kitchen area and presumably a stair case.

There was something off putting about the cottage, reminding Daryl of the funeral home. He watched from the corner of his eye as Beth walked across the room to the back window and he looked at everything that was neat, tidy, in it's place and he just knew that there was something wrong so he walked over to the fireplace.

"No dust," Beth remarked.

"We could check out the kitchen, upstairs, grab some stuff we need."

"Daryl Dixon! There are people clearly living here. Children, too," she nodded her head towards the chair and a small pile of tiny clothing, smaller even than Judith the last time he had seen her.

"Ain't nobody home," he grunted at her and her eyes rolled. He had not meant it as an excuse to take stuff. Even if there were people living there a few days ago, they could be dead already by now. The funeral home had felt the same, but no one had come home those two nights Beth and Daryl had been there. Maybe no one had ever gone back, that last meal Beth and Daryl had shared there still out, rotting on the table. Hovering a hand close to the wood at the base of the fireplace, Daryl could feel some warmth still coming from them.

"Path out here, an' a gate." He moved to stand behind her, looking over her shoulder out of the back window and he saw her body shiver as he huffed out a breath, her wispy loose hair blowing around from it. "Could be a farm up there," she whispered. "Some old farms, where towns got bigger and closer to 'em, they'd shut them down over time, but some kept running as smaller farms with fewer animals, less land. Knock down the farmhouse, fill that with chickens and build a smaller cottage. Could be what we got here."

"'n the people from here are up there."

"Worth findin' out." He bowed his head, his forehead thudding down on to her shoulder and she gave a small laugh. "There are still good people out there. Maybe these are some."

"Maybe they're not. Not sure it's worth the risk."

Raising a hand up to rest on his cheek, Beth leaned her own cheek onto him as her fingers scratched through the hair there. "They might want our help. Might put us up over winter. It's gonna get harder to keep moving, Daryl. We didn't fare too well before and there were more of us. More people makes us safer."

"Only if we trust 'em."

"Can't trust no-one." She sighed then. "Daryl, I think we need this."

"Ya just wanna be a farmer's daughter again, don't'cha, girl?"

"Come on," she urged, pulling away and grabbing hold of his hand towards the front door and then along the path. There were trees surrounding the path, they had obscured the view of the path from the window, even from the road leading up to the cottage it was hard to see the path. Daryl wondered if that meant it was safe. Nothing was safe, not really. Nothing ever had been in Daryl's life so the world going to shit after the turn was never as much of a shock to him as it was to the others.

As the trees began to make way for green grass land, Daryl could see another small building, older than the cottage, but not much bigger and other buildings around the western side of the site. It smelt like a farm; there were definitely animals around somewhere and without fences, Daryl had to wonder how they managed that.

From the tree line behind them, Daryl heard movement and turned, putting Beth behind and to the side, able to look across and meet her eye but giving each other the ability to see 180 degrees. At least five men walked out of the trees, guns raised and pointed at them. Daryl's bow was aimed at, well, all and none of the men and he could see that Beth had her knife up – neither would be very effective from this distance and for this many. Their eyes met briefly and he knew that there must be just as many people behind him.

"I'd put that bow down, son," a gruff male voice said from behind him and Daryl felt Beth start to lower her knife as he slowly turned, eyeing up an elderly man with white hair that Daryl instantly knew Beth would think reminded her of Hershel.

"Why? Ya gonna shoot us if we don'?"

"Not unless you give me reason to, and shooting my family is reason enough."


	9. Chapter 9

Lowering her knife, but keeping a definite and firm grip upon it, Beth laid a gentle hand on Daryl's shoulder, waiting for him to turn to look at her. It took only a moment and the hesitation, the disbelief was clear in his eyes, but he had to know there was no way out right now? Not with weapons raised at any rate. This was where he needed some of her hope and she willed him to see that in her eyes. A barely imperceptible sag in his shoulders told her that he was agreeing with her and he lowered the crossbow. They were both facing the same direction now, the one that they had been heading in to check out this farm when they had been ambushed by at least ten people – a mixture of men, women and children. Beth would guess the youngest was early teens, a girl and then two other older teenage boys, two women and around five men that Beth had been able to make out in her quick glances. She was trying to keep her attention on the oldest person, the white-haired man who had indicated that the others were his family.

Once upon a time, Beth would have taken that statement at face value – family was her Daddy, Mama, Shawn, Maggie. Maybe at a stretch she would have included Otis and Patricia in with them, but they were never really family. Now, Beth was unsure if she would list anyone other than Daryl. So really she had no idea what the man meant by that.

"We're just passin' through," Beth explained knowing that she had far more people skills than Daryl and that was what was needed.

"To where?" the gruff voiced older man asked. Beth had to admit that there was something in his look that reminded her of her daddy. She missed her daddy.

"Not too sure," she admitted with a smile. "We have family that went on ahead, but we lost their trail months ago. Just heading in their general direction now."

"Over winter?" he asked, concern on his face and Beth smiled again, hoping to gain not just his trust but also perhaps his sympathy.

"Got nowhere to stay to wait it out and, well, winter ain't gonna wait for us."

"My name's Harrison. This is my farm. It was before the dead started living and it will be mine until my kin take it over."

"I was raised on a farm," Beth admitted, her smile verging on sad at the memories. Just the smell of all the animals and hay was enough to set off her nostalgia and desire to turn back time and to still be there. When they had first been driven off from the farm, that Winter on the run and then when they had first been set up in the prison, Beth had wondered sometimes if they could have continued at the farm if it had not been for the horde or Rick and his group. Even now, a year later, after months of living and surviving in the prison, Beth still had those wonders. Not in the same way, not any more. At first they had been bitter questions – had it been Rick and Shane, the others, that had brought the horde on to them? Could they have stayed there, still been there now, if it had not been for that camper van, the motorcycle and gun training?

Over time the bitterness had seeped away, replaced with a love for those very people that Beth had been wishing away because, whilst she would never wish anyone dead, she would almost give up Carl, Judith, Carol, if she could still be happy on her farm with her daddy and Maggie, Otis and even Jimmy. If it meant having that one little pocket of normality and the world she knew, she wondered if she would go back and stop Carl from getting shot, keep them from ever finding the farm. She did still wonder, question herself on a night watch, if they could all still be there if that horde had not walked through. They would never have met the Governor, never have found Merle. They would never have met Michonne, never have lost Andrea. Jimmy would still be alive and maybe Beth would have actually ended up married to him. Her daddy would never have lost his leg. They never would have met Sasha and Tyresse, rescued those prisoners just to have them all die within days.

But the farm could never have been as safe as the prison had been, as the prison should have been – at least from Walkers.

Yet somehow Harrison had managed it with his family.

"Sorry," she apologized suddenly. "My name's Beth. This is Daryl."

"Nice to meet you, Beth," Harrison said, shaking the hand that she had held out to him.

"You'll have to forgive Daryl. We haven't met many nice people along the way. He likes to be wary enough for both of us."

"We're pretty off the beaten track out here, but my boys have seen what the world's become. How did you manage to stumble upon us?"

"We were avoiding someone else, headed off the path we would have been following. Saw the little cottage back there. Saw people were clearly living in there so we headed up here."

"Didn't think of taking anything?"

"I saw a coat I would be mighty glad of, but we ain't thieves. This world's turned us into scavengers, yeah, but not thieves. We're still decent and honest. Gotta hope there's still good people out there, don't ya?"

"So, farm girl," Harrison smiled and Beth returned it. "You reckon you could help out around here?"

"Been a year almost since we left my farm, but I won't have forgotten anything."

"We're just passing through," Daryl grumbled.

"You can speak," Harrison teased with a gentle laugh. "You handy with that bow?"

"Huntin'. Walkers. We do all right."

"Tell ya what," Harrison said. "Stay the night, we'll sort you out with some clothes an' help out tomorrow. My boys are out on a run to a nearby town. Daryl, you help them out whilst Beth helps the farm out and we'll see if we might be able to spend the winter accommodating you."

"She goes nowhere without me," he growled.

"Well, if you wanna risk her on a run, ya could both go."

"I can take care of myself," Beth responded and she was unsure who she was actually speaking to. "Let's see how we all feel come morning, huh?"

Everyone agreed and relaxed at this, both Daryl and Beth following Harrison and his family back to the little cottage they had found. The teenage girl, Grace, showed Beth around the bedrooms whilst the men divided up a perimeter watch for them to share and get rest along with food. Daryl volunteered to take the first watch whilst there was still some daylight and he reluctantly left Beth inside the cottage. Grace explained to her that everyone spent their days on the farm or walking the perimeter – the entire site was surrounded by forest but with a good hundred-meter distance from the buildings to the trees. There were no fences, the tree line was their first line of defence and three men at a time were walking different parts of it. At night they all congregated in the cottage with a strict lights out policy and no noise allowed once darkness had fallen. Two men spent every night on guard watching the animals and the shelter they were in. The only real hindrance to the quiet were the two babies who rarely ever left their nursery.

Grace showed Beth the nursery, where two mothers were sitting with their babes at their breast and Beth had faltered for a moment seeing Judith as a newborn. These babies were younger than Judith and their mothers had survived. That gave Beth fresh hope for the future. As they left the nursery, Grace grabbed Beth's wrist.

"We all sleep up here," she repeated her earlier words. "But Harrison," her eyes fell to the carpeted floor, "he don't allow men sleepin' up here. An' he won't like it if y'all decide to sleep downstairs."

"You're saying Daryl will have to stay down there and I can be up here?"

Grace shrugged her shoulders, her dirty blonde hair was a mess about her shoulders, dirty and scraggly for someone living in relative normality. "Heard him say you don't go nowhere without him and wanted to warn you s'all. Maybe ya should both head out before you're alone."

"We don't like to be separated," Beth explained. "But we can be. We have been." She was not sure then when the last time had actually been. There had been a few hunts when Noah had been with them where Daryl would venture away from them, but never too far. Before then it was when he yelled at her to leave the funeral home. The sudden memory of his shouts, of running out of the home and across the road hit her and she felt abject fear flood her body. "I might go check on him and the perimeter."

As Beth reached the bottom of the stairs, Daryl appeared from the kitchen, his mouth full of food and she breathed a sigh of relief. "Hey," she greeted. "How's the perimeter?"

"All clear, but I don' see how they keep the Walkers away. No real defences." He lowered his already quiet mumbles, "If a horde came outta them trees now, everyone's fucked."

"There's babies upstairs, Daryl."

"This place ain't safe."

Her shoulders sagged in defeat. "Grace says that we won't be able to sleep together if we stay here." A blush spread across her cheeks as his eyes met hers sharply and she cleared her throat, correcting herself, "I mean, not like that. I mean, sleeping near each other because that's all that happens, all I-"

"Know what ya mean, Greene. There's the work house we saw. Won't be as warm, but might be they let us sleep up there."

"I got some warmer clothes for us," she smiled, following him through the small cottage. It did not feel any safer here than anywhere else. Beth wished, not for the first time, that they could have stayed in the school because the winter was going to get harder. Day by day the resources remaining from before civilization seemed to fall, were dwindling and they were in the second winter already. Hunting would become harder, staying warm enough to live through the night was getting harder and it was just the two of them. A year ago, the group of them in a small room could produce enough heat to survive. It did not matter how unsafe this farm was, they needed somewhere to wait out the winter. They needed somewhere to rest as the days got shorter and shorter, the nights longer and longer.

It was Daryl who told Harrison that they were going to spend the night in the work house. The elderly patriarch was clearly not pleased with their decision and Beth was reminded of her daddy's rules when Rick and Shane had arrived, finally relenting and letting them in to the house as winter started. Maybe this would end up better, and give them some new family members.

Once they were settled in to one of the smallest rooms, to conserve heat, hay piled on to the floor to make it at least semi comfortable and Daryl sat down on it first, beckoning for her to sit in between his legs, Beth's eyebrow quirked up.

"Ain't enough space for lyin' down, Greene, 'n' I don't think we need to take a watch. Building's stone." He thumped the wall as if to prove what she already knew. "Ain't no horde walking right through an' that door's bolted up tight."

"Ya sure about them?" Her thumb jerked over her shoulder, in the direction of the cottage full of people behind them.

He shrugged, putting his legs out straight, enough of a gap that she would still fit in between them and set his crossbow down on one side, his knife in his other hand on his thigh. "Not much we can do. 'Less ya wanna run off or take over by force."

Laughing at that, Beth turned around and sat down in front of him, shuffling backwards on the hay until her bum came in to contact with his groin and she scooted forward slightly at the contact. Chewing her bottom lip, Beth leaned backwards against his chest and tried to let out a steady breath. His chest behind her did not seem to be breathing regularly, hitching every few moments as if uncomfortable with her presence. She felt it too, an uncomfortableness that should not be present and that she could not vocalize.

"Try 'n' sleep," he whispered hoarsely in to her ear and she shivered at the words blowing across her ear. Shifting as if in response, he relaxed back a little bit and she moved with him, closing her eyes and trying to relax.

"Can't," she finally admitted.

"Worried?"

"Anxious."

"'Bout?"

She wanted to say the people outside, the winter cold, the Walkers, the journey to their family but her brain was vacant of all those worries. It was being in his arms like this and she did not understand it. "Feels weird. Sittin' like this."

"Ya could curl up lower, rest ya head on my thigh like normal," he suggested. "But we'll share more body heat this way."

"Right."

"But we don't gotta."

"No, no, it's fine. It just feels stiff." Her jaw, arms and entire body, every muscle, went rigid at her own words and suddenly her cheeks were burning. The arm nearest his crossbow moved to cross over her chest, that hand resting on her lower abdomen, almost around her hip, cuddling her in to him. His knife hand dropped the knife on to his blanket covered thigh and pulled the blanket up around to her chin a bit more, tucking her in and then holding her shoulder gently. Turning her head to the side, facing the wall, Beth let her cheek rest against his chest, the coolness of his clothes combating the burning of her blush.

"Relax then. Just like normal. Just like the last night in the school." He would feel her smile through his clothes, she knew that, as she liked being reminded of that little memory. It was the day that Noah had died and Beth had dug the grave all on her own, stubbornly refusing to let Daryl help and he had set them up in a small teacher's lounge, part of the science department. They had needed to move on, but it had been too late in the day so they had spent one final night, curled up together on the three chairs they had pushed together. They had never slept like that, him against the backs of the chair and her back pressed tight up against him. His arms had wrapped tightly around her to stop her rolling or slipping off in her sleep and her own hands had wrapped around his arms, as if clinging on to him. By the morning, they had barely moved, aside from their legs becoming entwined as if during sleep they had become one person.

"I liked that," she whispered as her eyelids started to become heavy.

"Me, too," he replied just as quietly, his head dropping to place a kiss on the top of her head and Beth smiled as sleep claimed her. When Daryl stirred behind her, waking her, the room was starting to get light and Beth wondered how much sleep she had actually had. Her internal body clock had altered to this new world and she barely slept longer than four to five hours, usually to switch watches with Daryl. Before that it had been to see to Judith who had not been close to sleeping through the night when they had abandoned the prison. With the nights getting longer, it was harder to tell when it should have been morning as the sun would not rise until too late unless they wanted to spend over 12 hours in bed.

"What time is it?" she queried, her voice thick with sleep.

"Sun's up so past breakfast."

"How'd I sleep so long?" she asked, still not having moved. In fact, if anything, she was nuzzling her cheek against his warm chest, fighting the urge to move. She had moved in her sleep, turning more on to her side in between his legs, her chest almost pressing down on to his and her legs curled up towards his groin. Both of his legs were bent at the knee, one arm slung across a knee and the other wrapped around her underneath the blanket. She felt pretty much cocooned by him and she did not want to move, she did not want the cruel world to become real again.

"We didn't get here 'til late." He shrugged his shoulders then, the arm around her shifting with it, rubbing up along her arm and she nuzzled some more. "Slept well that last night in the school, too." Tilting her chin up to look at his face, Beth's breath caught when she realized he was already gazing down at her and he shrugged again, rubbing her arm. "Just sayin'. Ya better shift, girl, I got a run to be doing."

Sitting up straight and stretching her back and arms up right in front of him, Beth let the blankets and Daryl's arm fall from her and she bristled at the sudden cold. Standing up, Beth put a hand out and helped Daryl to his feet, noticing a faint red coloring on his cheeks and neck.

"You sure about this run?" she asked, folding up the blanket and emptying out her bag.

"No, ain't got no other choice, way I see it."

"I could come." Ramming the blanket in to her bag first, Beth then began to fill it up with the rest of her belongings, watching Daryl as he did the same before chewing on his thumb. "Jus' sayin'," she repeated back to him in an attempt to diffuse his awkwardness.

"No idea what I'm heading in to with these guys. Don' fancy walking int' the unknown with ya."

She watched him closely as she stood up, finished and ready to leave. He was doubtful, she could see it behind his eyes, but he would not admit it. He needed her to stay at the farm, learn more about it and he needed to see what Harrison's sons were like. If they were going to stay here for the winter, they needed to get a feel for the land. He stepped to walk past her, but she stopped him, putting her hands flat against his chest and smoothing out the material there as if he were a suited business man about to be kissed goodbye for work by his wife and Beth smiled at the thought, looking up through her eyelashes at him. "Just remember, Mr Dixon, not all people are good."

He huffed a laugh at her contradicting advice from usual. "I know, I know." He sounded like her daddy used to when her mama was nagging him.

Stepping up on her tiptoes, Beth leaned in closely and pressed a kiss to his stubbly, hair covered cheek. "Come home to me, Daryl Dixon, ya hear me."

"Yes, ma'am," he half-smiled in response, taping her hand gently before walking away from her and all she could do was watch him leave with an awful feeling settling in her stomach. Trying to convince herself that it was purely hunger, Beth followed a little way behind Daryl, watching as he met up with four of Harrison's sons as they gathered near their truck. She saw Grace then coming from the cottage with two bottles of water and some cans of food, passing one off to Daryl before heading towards Beth. Daryl caught Beth's eyes, nodding his head before climbing in to the truck and she felt helpless with her arms crossed against her stomach as Grace came to stand next to her, both of them watching the truck leave.

"Here ya go," Grace offered the water and food and Beth took it with a polite smile. "Should be a good run. They should come back with plenty of supplies."

"So's one of them ya daddy?" Beth asked, following Grace towards the animals. They both had jobs to do.

"No. My daddy… I ain't Harrison's biological family. Stumbled upon here soon after the world turned to shit," she explained speaking across the stables where there were two horses living. Beth missed her horse, staring wistfully at the beautiful animals. "Mom and Dad died within days of the outbreak, I guess. Went to school with one of Harrison's daughters. She got bit a few weeks after they took me in. I got her bedroom though." Grace smiled at that and Beth's brow furrowed.

"How old are ya?"

"Thirteen. Was eleven when I came here."

"Thirteen and Harrison was your friend's daddy?" Beth would have pegged Harrison for being the same age as her own daddy, but to have such a young child, six years younger than herself, it struck Beth as odd. Grace nodded as if it were normal. "Them two mamas with babes, they the only women here?"

"Them and another, Darcy, she's Bobby's wife. That's Harrison's eldest. The only one married. Helen and Megan, they're the baby mommas."

"So one of them's your friend's mama?"

"Uh-huh."

"An' the other?" Grace went silent then, pausing in brushing at the horse's hair. "Grace?"

"This run today, your daddy, he won't be coming back," the teenager's voice was just a whisper that Beth could only just hear above the breathing of the horses.

"My… Daryl ain't my daddy."

"No matter," Grace shrugged. "He won't be coming back."

"Why not? Grace?" In frustration, Beth stepped towards Grace and pulled the younger girl around to face her.

"This family here ain't like mine," the girl whispered. "But it's safe here." There was a bright smile on her face then, but Beth did not believe it.

"Really? Then why won't Daryl be coming back?" she asked, refusing to believe Grace's belief. Nothing could kill that man. He had found her in the damn apocalypse after cops had kidnapped her days earlier, tracking her across the deserted Atlanta on unfamiliar terrain. Who could manage that? Daryl Dixon, is who, and he would find her again if Harrison's sons abandoned him somewhere. "Are you really safe here?"

"From the dead, yeah."

"From Harrison?" He seemed so friendly and fatherly, Beth refused to believe that a man who reminded her so much of her own daddy could be hurting or threatening people.

"Harrison don't hurt anyone," Grace said truthfully and vehemently. "He just don't trust men. He let a couple stay, in the earlier days. They… they're the reason two of his daughters, one of his daughter in laws, why they're dead. Harrison killed them, ended the girls' misery and dug their graves themselves. He believes all men are rapers and killers now. All except his sons."

"Are ya safe from his sons?" Beth was trying to bite down the panic she was feeling, churning in her stomach at the thoughts that this place could be just like Grady. That maybe Daryl had left her in the hands of people that she had already escaped from once. Like he had said, that day he found her and told her that she rescued herself, if this farm was like Grady, she would get herself out of it and find Daryl again. They would always find each other.

"Mostly," Grace admitted, starting up the hair brushing again. "The middle one, Charlie, he has a bit of a temper, hit me a few times when I couldn't keep up, leers at me other times. But he's closer to your age so I reckon he'll move his attention on to you."

"Like to see him try," Beth laughed humorlessly.

"Daryl won't be coming back," Grace repeated and Beth could only nod her head, moving away from Grace and the horses. She did not think the farm was going to be able to house them both for winter and, not for the first time, Beth desperately wished for the prison or her own farm, safety for her family. Frequently Beth thought that life was more than manageable, surviving and living along side Daryl, just the two of them ambling around. She would have stayed in that funeral home with him. Even now, knowing that her family were alive, that they were getting closer and closer to them, Beth would still consider staying somewhere with Daryl, just the two of them. She would have stayed in that school with him after Noah died and Jocelyn left, in the funeral home, hell, even in the moonshine shack before they burnt it down. She could be happy, just the two of them, somewhere safe.

Crossing the farm and checking the perimeter as she went, looking out across the flat grass land that spread from the buildings to the dense tree line that apparently Walkers rarely crossed. She knew she should be helping out on the farm, doing her job, like her daddy would have wanted to, like Daryl wanted her to because it was him that wanted somewhere safe for the winter. He was too afraid, having lost her once already, he was scared of losing her again, but he thought nothing of losing himself along the way.

Maybe if she spoke to Harrison, showed him that she and Daryl were good people then the farm could be something safe for them both. There was still hope of finding good people, accepting more people in to her heart as she had accepted Glenn, Rick and Carl, Carol, Sasha and Tyresse, Michonne, Noah, Lori and T-Dog, Daryl more than all the others.

After a slow ramble around the perimeter, Beth wondered back towards the centre of the farm, the sun now high in the sky indicating it was probably lunch time. Beth had yet to even eat breakfast, the churning in her stomach was still too great. It was a clear day, but that meant the temperature was bitterly cold with no cloud cover to help insulate. As she squinted up at the sun, a voice broke in to her thoughts.

"Nice day."

With a hand above her eyes, shielding the sun for a moment to look up and across, Beth saw Harrison standing there, a bottle of water out stretched in his hand. She took the bottle with thanks and swallowed a mouthful. "Be nicer if it were warmer."

"You worrying about your friend? He is your friend, isn't he? Not your daddy?"

"No," she shook her head, looking down at the stones beneath her feet, a small smile on her face. "He ain't my daddy. My daddy was about your age."

"Was?"

"He died, only a few months ago now."

"Bitten?"

She shook her head, no. "Head cut off."

Harrison winced.

"There's something you need to know about Daryl. He's loyal. Loyal as fuck," the curse was strange on her lips, but true. "Loyal to me and the others we call family, but mostly to me now, I guess. He's never hurt no one that didn't deserve it and he is a strength everyone needs in this world. He is how we can all survive. Together, we're harmless and we really can be an advantage here, bring qualities you don't have but need. Grace told me what happened to your daughters, that you don't trust men no more. Daryl ain't like that, never could be." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "He ain't never touched me or hurt me, 'n' we been alone for weeks."

"I appreciate what you're saying, Beth, but when you've seen the world change the way that I have… This is my land and family to protect."

"I've seen the world change," she argued with a small hint of anger. She was not naïve and innocent to the world. Maybe she had been when the dead had first started walking, but she had seen the world change. "I was separated from my family, from Daryl and taken in by some police out of Atlanta. Still surviving in the middle of a city. By surviving, I mean abducting people on the street, in the dark of night. Treating people medically and feeding them, but charging them for the fact without their permission. Expecting people, girls, to agree to paying with sexual favours instead of working hard to pay off their debts. The people I've been living with for near on two years, they ain't like that. Not a single one." Beth paused, taking a long and slow deep breath, vaguely aware of a car engine approaching. "There are still good people in the world, sir, anyone can still be good."

The noise of the car engine got louder and louder until the two vehicles that left that morning suddenly raced back in to view coming to a screeching halt at the end of the dirt path, just before the grassy area started. The hairs on the back of Beth's neck stood up as something about the noise put her on edge. Some of the men left the cars, shouting between themselves and across to one of the women who had come up from the cottage behind them. Harrison started running towards the vehicles, Beth could see almost everyone running towards them and then her legs started, racing ahead of all of the others just in time to see Daryl stumble from one of the vehicles, an arrow in his side and blood absolutely everywhere. One of the sons was covered in blood, too, from his face and downwards. Both bloodied men stumbled to the ground, Harrison's son supported by his brothers, but Daryl was left to fend for himself as his knees slammed to the dirt.

Beth was there only moments later, catching him and helping lower him backwards on to her lap as her hands went to cup his face, his eyes fluttering open and closed at her. She was distantly aware of the woman from the cottage bringing first aid kits and one of the sons shouting about not wasting any on him, on Daryl.


	10. Chapter 10

"I need bandages!" Beth yelled from above him and Daryl tried to focus his eyes on her. She was right behind him, cradling him in her lap, yet his eyes could not focus. He hoped it was more from the pain rather than blood loss, but he could not feel any pain and Daryl had no idea if that was a good sign or bad. It did make him want to laugh. "What ya laughin' at, Dixon?"

His answer to her was simply more laughs. He heard someone, one of Harrison's sons, one of the fuckers from the run, shouting back, "Can't be wastin' supplies on this'un. He's good as dead."

Daryl's laugh died away when he realized they were talking about him. Beth was suddenly shifting him, laying him on the cool ground on his side and pillowing up something under his head. The ground should be cold, not cool, Daryl forced a cough trying to focus and remain coherent, worried that his body must already be cold if it could not feel the temperature of the ground. He needed to fight and stay present, he needed to stay with Beth, now more than ever it was too important. There was no way that Daryl was leaving Beth here alone. No, he needed to get her back to her family where everyone would protect her and not just him.

She was behind him, he was sure although he could not feel her there. If she was prodding at his wound, he could not feel it. "Beth?" he managed to croak out.

"I'm here, Daryl, don't worry. I got this."

Movement caught his eye and Daryl saw the girl that Beth had spoken to, Grace, he thought, kneeling in front of him and she had Beth's bag. "Ya got everything ya need in here?"

"Easy as pie," Beth answered from somewhere behind him, her voice sounding less than confident. "'cept could do with some antibiotics."

Daryl noticed Grace's smile and wondered what it meant, before he was distracted by finally feeling pain. "Fuck, Beth! Whatcha doin' girl?"

"Checkin' your wound. Luckily," he could tell she was talking to Grace now. "This one here's been shot with his own arrow before. Same place pretty much, too. Infection's the only worry I got. Can stitch him up fine."

"Never been shot with my own arrow, Greene," he hissed through gritted teeth as she continued doing something that sent pain through his entire body.

"Uh-huh," she responded distractedly. "Okay, he fell on his arrow once."

"Damn straight!"

There was laughing then, from the girls, and Daryl hoped that meant he was not about to die.

"Daryl, tell me what happened?"

"Nothin'," he mumbled, trying to move and look around him. These people were a threat and he knew Beth was not checking her surroundings.

"Stay still," she commanded and he relaxed back down slightly. "Daryl, I need ta pull this arrow out 'n' stitch it up. Rather ya talkin' than screamin'."

"Don't do screamin' like a little girl," he bit out, trying not to yelp in pain as she must have moved the arrow, blinding pain shooting through his core.

She was in front of him then, checking the wound on his stomach and she paused to meet his eyes. "It's better if I break it." Her eyes met his and he nodded with one firm and decisive motion as she snapped the back of the arrow off from behind him and then she locked her eyes on to his, grabbing hold of the arrow head with her hands. He watched her, trying to ignore what he could feel and just focus on her. Her hair was messy, wispy lengths of it flying around, a smear of blood across her forehead where she must have used her wrist to push her hair out of her eyes. It was his blood, he realized with a sudden wave of nausea. "'Kay, ready?" she whispered, her eyes locked on to his as she gripped the head of the arrow, protruding from his stomach and pulled. He grunted some, kicked his leg against the ground and tried to punch out with his left arm, his body laying on his right, anything to stop the pain. And the scream that did want to rip from his lips, he held it in.

She was telling the truth, he had been speared with his own arrow before, in pretty much the exact same spot and he had dealt with it himself. Well, Hershel had done a lot when he got back to the farm, but before then, when he had fallen, banging his head, stabbing himself, he had done all of that on his own. He had made it back to the farm on his own. And there had not been any screams of pain then, why should he give in to the pain this time? He had suffered worse, far worse in his life before the turn. Any screams, cries, yelps, grunts or even wet eyes would just cause his father to be harder, laughing at his cowardly son crying like a baby or screaming like a girl. _Think ya mama gonna run in 'n' save ya, boy?_

"Hell, no."

"Daryl? Ssh, it's okay. It's out." His eyes were shut now, but he was still conscious. Maybe an ordinary person would have passed out by now, but that was never allowed with his father either. Sleep was for pussies, especially during a lesson. "Just gonna start stitchin'. It'll hurt, Daryl."

Her voice was quiet and he wondered if it was his hearing or if she was that scared that she was whispering. There was a pushing on his back, felt like a huge pressure as Beth must have been packing the entry wound with material because then she was guiding him over on to his back. Again, the ground was not cold.

"Hey," she gently slapped at his face. "Open up." Forcing his eyes open, he saw her, blood smear still on her face along with a forced smile. Her shoulders were bare, white and bright against the blue sky. Turning his head away from her, looking across the ground he could smell Beth underneath him; it was her jumper under his head. "Stay with me, Daryl. Come on, gotta stay awake. Tell me," she sighed, her hands working at the needle and thread. He could feel each and every pull of the needle, pulling at his skin. The pain was dull now. "What happened? I need to know who to avenge if I'm not as good as my daddy."

"Charlie's got a bloody nose," Grace said low enough that Daryl only just heard her.

"An' the rest," he grunted with a wince.

"Ya beat him up, Daryl Dixon?"

"Hmmm-hmmm."

"Why's that then?"

"Defendin' a lady's honour."

"What lady? You don't know any." He heard Beth's laugh, knew that she was joking, but he found nothing funny in her words. "What he say?"

"That pussy assed kid, told me he fancied a piece of ya."

"An' what? He shot ya? With ya own bow?" Everyone who knew Daryl knew that he never let anyone get near his bow, that he would have to be dead to get hold of his bow. Unless you were Beth, and then you got to hunt with it. She was the only person that he trusted enough with such a privilege, and none of the rest of their family knew. He did not want to die on the cold hard ground, leaving Beth to fend for herself and without their family knowing how much he would give for the girl.

"Hell, no," he spat out, a combination of disgust at her suggestion and pain at her stitching him up. Keeping his eyes focused on her face as she kept her own on his wound and fixing him up, Daryl wondered if everyone else was still crowded around them, watching and waiting for him to pass out. Maybe they were about to object at his words, his telling of the events, or just waiting silently for Beth to be somehow more vulnerable than she was playing nurse to him, waiting to pounce on her. "He kept on 'bout it, wonderin' 'bout ya." Daryl could easily elaborate further, could remember the language and tone used by the douche, but there was no point in embarrassing or angering Beth. Charlie had just been trying to get a rise out of him. It had worked.

"Try'n'a get a reaction from ya," she whispered and he wondered if it was due to concentration or fear of angering him.

"I know."

"And you reacted?" There was no fear in her eyes as they briefly met his before shifting him slightly, trying to not cause him too much pain, but needing to access the other side of his wound.

"Threw my bow and knife down. Punched him." It had been a careless move, in retrospect, completely disarming himself and only now hoping that the other men had remembered to pick up his knife because Daryl, even in that much pain managed to remember to grab his bow once it had been disconnected from him. No little pain was going to get to him. Gritting his teeth as Beth pulled at his skin, the needle piercing his inflamed and nerve ridden injury, feeling like it was blunter than a spoon, Daryl gazed away and saw his bow sitting near to him. Everything would be fine as long as he had that bow and Beth to keep him alive.

"Just a punch?"

"Ain't no one gonna say shit about you, girl. Someone tackled me to the ground." Daryl had no idea if it was Charlie, the pussy assed kid or one of his brothers. "Landed on a fucking nocked arrow. An' it hurts like a bitch."

"Cos there weren't no force behind it." She hesitated, pulling a little bit tighter and causing a hiss to escape his lips. "There all stitched up. How ya feelin'?"

His answer was simply to look at her so she shrugged her shoulders at him.

"Serves ya right for fightin'." A huge sigh fell from her body as she positioned herself to be sitting right in front of him, sitting on her legs and she waited until his eyes were on her, half hidden behind his hair but they both knew they could both see enough. "You know we won't be welcome here now."

He wanted to say fuck it, that he did not care, but she needed somewhere for the rest of winter, she deserved it.

"You able to stand?"

Trying not to lean on her, a futile attempt to show his own strength, Daryl stood and closed his eyes as the world spun a bit. As he came back in to focus he could hear Beth talking. "We ain't staying here."

Ignoring the mild nausea, Daryl forced himself to find out what was going on because why would Beth be declaring they were leaving. As far as they knew this was the last possible respite. The shortness of the days told Daryl they were pretty much on top of the shortest day of the year. He snorted in laughter to himself then. It was Christmas already, not that it had ever meant anything to him. The clear blue sky of the day had worried him, making him feel that maybe snow was on the cards because so far this winter they had made it without any snow. It certainly was a mild winter, maybe even milder than the last one where they had been on the run.

"I'll talk to my sons," Harrison was answering as Daryl realized that he was still standing, leaning up against the car and there was no one else around them other than Beth, the old man and Grace.

"It's done," Beth answered. "They wouldn't even try 'n' save his life. You wanna live in such utter seclusion, go ahead, but one day y'all are gonna need more'n ya got here. And, as for ya sons, the one who did this has hit Grace 'afore, made advances to her. Get your sons in line before judging those that come knocking at your door for aid. We'll be off by nightfall." God that girl was as stubborn as a Greene, Daryl smiled, still wondering if it was really the right decision. Sure, he would never sleep a night at this farm, worrying too much for Beth – a woman who could easily fend for herself despite how protective he always felt. Was it all of that hope and optimism, purely Beth qualities, that was making Beth so confident about continuing on their own?

Daryl squinted up in to the sky, nightfall was not too far away and the sky was still bright and blue. The temperature was definitely dropping and all too soon the sun would disappear behind the trees and then be gone for another twelve hours or more. And he was injured now, where was she planning on taking them that they would survive the night? Harrison asked her the same question.

"It's not safe out there," he continued. "Not alone. At least stay to let your friend heal up."

"Now ya care?"

"I'll take 'em." All three pairs of adult eyes turned to Grace. She was pointing out across one line of trees past the work house they had stayed in the night before. There was a small hill behind it, green and grassy still. "To the old hay barn."

Yeah, there was something up there that looked like it could be a barn. Or building of some sort, but did the girl know it was in good condition.

"Takes an hour in good light, might be two for him."

"I'm good," he stubbornly grunted.

"Grace," Beth objected. "Can't be lettin' ya risk yourself."

"You're not," the teen argued back just as stubbornly and Daryl wondered if she was a mini Beth in the making.

Harrison turned to the girl then. "Why'd you never tell me Charlie hit you?"

"He's your son. I'm no one."

"No, you're not," Harrison replied as Beth shook her head. "You're the one who came to help here, who saw the good in these strangers."

"Then let me help them."

Harrison sighed heavily. "I know a dirt road up there, might be a bit overgrown, but I'll drive you both. Grace, go fetch all their stuff, some extra to see them on their way."

"Only if I can go with you all." It was no real barter, but Harrison nodded reluctantly. It did not take long to get everything loaded in to the car that reeked of Daryl's blood, hopefully it would not attract too many Walkers. That was the only benefit to winter really any more, the slowing of the dead. Though it also slowed their decay to an extent. One day they might all simply rot away and the living could try and reclaim the planet. Or the trees and squirrels could. Harrison tried to take it easy driving over the bumpy ground but the road was overgrown and it was not easy to maneuver through it. Daryl quickly closed his eyes, partly to block out the bumps and the fire each one sent shooting from his wound and partly to try and rest. Exhaustion was suddenly coming over him and by the time the car came to a stop it was dark except for the light of the moon and Daryl was awoken by Beth's hand in his, squeezing.

As he blinked in to the darkness, both of them still sitting in the back of the car, Daryl wondered when their hands had moved to hold each other and their fingers intertwined with each other.

"We're here," she whispered and he nodded, clearing his throat and pulling his hand from hers. Harrison was at the door, opening it and holding out a hand to Daryl that he tried to refuse. Sitting in the car had caused all of his muscles to tense up and even his legs, uninjured, seemed to be filled with lead after the rest.

"It's not much," Harrison said. "But it should still be filled with hay. It'll keep ya warm. Only this one door, a bar on the other side of it and a small window up the top. A rope ladder from the window and a wooden and rope in the middle of the barn. You got enough food for a good few days, woods just over there for hunting and a pretty good vantage point. You could stay here a while. We'll be just down the road." The older man's head hung down, his eyes on his shoes. "I'll talk to my sons. You'll both be welcome back."

"Thank you," Beth said with a smile that even Daryl believed might be genuine. Then she turned to the teenager. "You can stay with us if you like. It won't be easy. I don't know what tomorrow's going to bring, but I'd love you meet my sister and my little girl. Well," Beth's cheeks flushed and she caught herself. "The girl I look after."

Shifting his gaze back down towards the farm, Daryl could make out the buildings but there were no signs of life down there due to Harrison's strict rules. Rules that had kept his family, mostly, safe and surviving. Daryl had set out from the church thinking about how Judith had been apart from Beth for almost two weeks, wondering if the baby could have forgotten Beth already. It had been over two months now and there was no way that baby was ever going to remember Beth. Whether Beth was aware of that, Daryl did not know, but he hated the fact that it was going to break her heart when they finally found their family.

"Thank you, but this place is my home. One day, maybe everything will be safe and back to normal and then, my family home is just around the corner. My family. My memories."

"Of course," Beth nodded and Daryl could hear the tears in her voice. She was thinking about losing the girl and how they left her farm behind over a year ago. Maybe the girl was right and they would make it back to the Greene farm one day, rebuild it in Hershel's memory. Both Beth and Grace were rubbing off on Daryl in the worst way possible, making him all optimistic and hopeful, thinking about a future when he had never had one before. They hugged then, the girls, and Beth stood next to Daryl, barely a step away as they watched the car disappear in to the darkness slowly as Harrison did not want to use his lights.

"You should get some rest," Beth said as she crossed her arms across her chest. "Can ya make it up to the hay store?"

He grunted a yes as she moved all their bags one by one in to inside of the door.

"We can sort these out tomorrow when we got light. You head up there and rest, I'll call ya to swap over."

Part of him wanted to fight with her, argue that it should be him taking the watch or that maybe they could both just sleep, but he knew that was not safe and that he needed to rest. His body needed to.

"Here," she chucked him a bottle of antibiotics. "Grace snuck 'em into my bag. Don't want you getting sick on me."

Nodding his head in thanks, he opened the pot and swallowed a pill dry. "Gimme four hours, deal?"

"Uh-huh," she replied quietly, her eyes on the farm beneath them. He walked away from her then using a flashlight to see his way to the ladder. "'Night, Daryl." Sleep was upon him before he even had the time to make himself comfortable and when he woke up there was a brightness around the place. Well, not exactly a brightness as everything seemed dark and gloomy, grey even, but light none the less. He had been left to sleep the whole night and his first instinct was to go and rip Beth a new one until a panic overcame him that maybe something had happened to her so he grabbed his bow, checked for his returned knife and as quickly and quietly as he could given his injury, made his way down the ladder and towards where he had left Beth.

She was still there, sitting on the ground with a blanket wrapped around her, her breath misting in to the morning air which was when Daryl noticed how cold it was. With a quick glance and matching smile, Beth pulled one of her arms out of the blanket and started to push herself up to a stand. For a moment Daryl moved to help her, but then thought better of it – his side was still filled with a burning pain, luckily it was simply at a level he was used to and could function through. When she was standing tall, the blanket repositioned to around her shoulders, he stared at the bags underneath her eyes and then met the bloodshot, blue eyes. Without any words she knew what he was thinking and she rolled her eyes, shrugged her shoulders and coughed to clear her throat.

"Ya were out cold," she explained.

"Hmm-hmm." His response sounded doubtful and he knew it.

"Ya were!" With a shake of her head and a little laugh, Beth continued. "When it started getting light, I came in, brought some of our bags up to ya, thinkin' ya'd hear me an' wake. Had to check ya pulse, thought ya were gone."

Turning then to where they had left all the bags from Harrison, Daryl noticed they were all gone. "Gave us a lot."

"He did, yeah. Few cans of food, some of their fresh stuff, clothes, first aid." Her chin fell then, her eyes falling to the ground and Daryl quickly surveyed the area before his eyes landed back on her. The sky was grey, filled with clouds and Daryl wondered if snow really was due. "Not sayin' I trust his sons, an' I know we're so close to them." He looked across to the farm where some of the people were already moving around, living. "But maybe this is where we could spend winter."

"Maybe." Her head snapped up then, her eyes meeting his almost without his permission and he felt as frozen as the ground beneath his feet. Beth's entire face screamed of hope and he so badly wanted to give it to her.

His eyes darted back to the farm then when a movement from the tree line caught his attention. At first he wondered if it was one of the sons checking the perimeter, but there were too many of them. Only maybe about ten all breaking out from the same part of the trees, but they looked like a swarm none the less. Daryl watched as the group moved towards the nearest building and stayed behind it, slowly splitting up and flanking either side.

"Who're they?" Beth whispered.

"Dunno." His own voice was as quiet as hers as if both were worried that they would be heard when all that really happened was that both stood there for a few minutes, watching as the small band of people, clearly not Walkers, snuck around the farm with knives and huge blades. From the corner of his eye, Daryl saw Beth put a hand to her mouth in shock before a gun shot rang out.

Instinctually, Daryl turned around and checked either side of the hay barn, waiting for Walkers to be attracted to the noise from one of the farmer's guns. Loud noises spooked him now, knowing that they would bring down a horde upon them. Screams pierced the air and Daryl felt Beth move forward a step. His hand on her arm, his fingers curling around her elbow and feeling nothing but her cold coat, stopped her.

"Nothin' ya can do, girl." The voice that came out of his throat sounded more gravelly than usual. They were good people, all being slaughtered. Even Charlie, the dick douche, did not deserve what was happening down there. "Get inside," he croaked, letting his arm drop from her. Moving then to lean against the door frame, she turned but hesitated, standing next to him, her back to the chaos below as more and more of the farm inhabitants ran across, from building to building as the attackers began kicking in doors. Her fingers flickered out and almost touched his, drawing his attention away from the scene before him. "Go on, nothin' t' see. Get some rest."

She headed in and he watched.

He watched as helpless as he had at the prison as one of the attackers approached Harrison, slicing at him and the father fell to the ground just as Hershel had once. And all that Daryl could do was watch as one by one all of the family seemed to be cut down, including one of the moms he saw trying to escape with both babes in a car.

There was another scream and Daryl shifted his eyes to the work house that had been his and Beth's shelter for a night and he imagined it was a high-pitched teenage girl's scream.

More movement came from the trees and Daryl feared that there were more attackers until he recognized the slower, uncoordinated movements of Walkers.

The heavens opened then, sprinkles of ice cold snow falling on to his face as he watched another farm being overrun.


	11. Chapter 11

When Beth next saw Daryl she was awake, staring at the hay when she heard the creaks of the ladder as he slowly appeared before her. Forcing herself to sit up slightly, trying not to move too much because it was cold now, colder than it had been the whole night she had been sitting watch outside. She had been to sleep, she was sure of it, had come inside when Daryl ordered her to, when the farm was under attack and she had curled up in the hay that Daryl had left moments before, consumed with some bastard-hybrid smell of him and her childhood. Not that those comforting features had stopped her from crying, but they had helped her fall asleep, along with pure exhaustion. The world, the barn still seemed just as grey, so Beth had no idea how long she had been asleep, but something had woken her moments before she had heard Daryl closing the large barn doors. And then the tears had started again, running down the dirty trails of her earlier ones and Beth wondered how she still had any left in her.

Maybe he had let her sleep over a whole day and night, or maybe something had happened and he had woken her early. Perhaps the attackers were on the move and they needed to run. They were always running.

"Snowin'," he told her as if noticing the panic in her eyes.

With a pathetic nod and useless swipe at her cheeks, Beth laid back down. It did not even occur to her to watch the snow, covering the world in white and purity for a rebirth in spring. There could be no rebirth after the massacre she had just seen.

"Anyone survive?" she asked, keeping her eyes on a piece of hay she was holding in her fingertips. There was no sound from him, but she heard his head shake, no.

"Walkers came."

"The attackers?" Fresh tears fell when Beth thought of those babies, both of them so little and helpless. She had been responsible for Judith at the same age, had lost her when the prison fell and if they never found the others, she would never know for certain that she had really made it out, no matter what Daryl told her. Then she was filled with guilt at leaving Judith, doubting Daryl, not helping those babies, at hoping the Walkers killed every last one of those sons of bitches who massacred a family. And for what?

That was what made no sense in her brain, not that any of the other attacks she had witnessed were justified, but there had always been an antagonism between Rick, the prison and the Governor at Woodbury. Even with the Governor's disappearance, there was always the potential for retaliation. Harrison had never mentioned there being a problem with anyone; he had dealt with the rapist murders who had killed his kin. So, who were they and why had they attacked the farm the way that they had?

"Most of 'em ran."

"Shit," she cursed, uncaring of how harsh it sounded from her lips. The whole world was harsh now, harsh and grey and shit. "What're we doin', Daryl?"

Faster than her brain could process, he was on his knees in front of her, his large, dirty yet warm hands on her cheeks, stroking away the constant stream of tears. She shivered, vulnerability rolling through her, but it did not scare her because this was Daryl. "What d'ya mean?"

"Here. Now. Why are we trekking across the damn country, sittin' back an' sleepin' whilst people, God damned people, murdered babies?

"Nothin' we could'a' done 'cept get ourselves killed."

"But why we even doin' it?" Months ago now, maybe even a lifetime, she had decided there was no point in just surviving in this hell world, no, you needed to live, too. To live and survive, that was the goal and instead she was trying to find something that she would probably never find, putting her life on the line for a family that were miles away and did not care about her.

"For our family."

She wanted to feel angry at that, but she did not. Instead her heart broke. "Our family? Daryl, they ain't lookin' for us, for me. They never were, were they? They don't care. You're the only one who does." Her hands moved to his cheeks then, each of them holding the other like a mirror. "Why are we killin' ourselves to find them?"

His eyes closed then and she felt his exhalation across her lips before his eyes reopened, meeting her eyes straight on, his eyelashes brushing against his long hair. "Cos a' love."

"Love?" she whispered softly.

With a nod, it seemed to take him a moment to find any words. "Maggie. Judith. Rick, he… he called me his brother. Reckon he shows more love 'n Merle ever did."

Fresh tears fell from her eyes, soaking his thumb and palm that were still cupped against her cheeks, his thumb gently trying to rub at them. She had sobbed and looked away briefly when he had said Judith's name.

"They love us, Beth. That's why we keep going, keep surviving, keep living."

"This ain't living!" She pulled away, letting her own hands fall away and he winced as she must have knocked him, jarring his wound in the movement. "Sittin' back as men have their way with girls, promisin' protection for sexual favours or payment. I don't wanna live or survive in this world!"

"What happened at Grady?" he whispered and shock filled her face for a moment before she slowly breathed out, settled back closer to him, almost to when they had been touching, but now his warmth seemed just out of reach.

"Not… that," she answered, realizing that he had probably wanted to ask her that for the time they had been travelling together. "It could have happened," she admitted slowly and quietly, not wanting to speak about it for fear that it would make it real, that it would make her weak and another girl waiting to die. "One of the police there, he suggested things, but never got the chance, I guess. You stopped the guy who got closest." He grabbed her wrist then, either to hold her hand or just to anchor her close, she was unsure, but they both felt his fingers brush her scars. "I gave up that day," she whispered, watching his fingers against her pale skin. "But I decided to live. What for? For all this… shit."

"Don't go givin' up all ya hope now, Greene. Ya the only thing keeping me goin'."

"Don't know why," her voice was quiet like his, but innocent where his had been gruff. "I ain't nothin' special."

"Yeah ya are, Beth Greene." She sniffed, the tears finally slowing and she looked down at his hand on her wrist, covering his hand with hers, anchoring him there before he could pull back.

"It hurts, Daryl," she admitted on a broken sigh. Her eyes flickered up and saw the worry in his eyes. Shaking her head, she moved her lowest hand, the one with the scar, their joined hands falling to her thigh, his palm on the worn fabric there, and touched it to her chest. "No, in here."

His hand slid up her thigh to her hip and waist, his other simultaneously wrapping around her back as he pulled her to him, holding her close against his chest. For a while she resumed crying, not sobbing, but openly crying in to his chest, soaking through his clothes in a move that was not wise given the low temperature she felt all around her. At that moment nothing else mattered other than shedding her pain. Venturing out to see if there was anything left to salvage at the farm, was pointless, heading out to hunt or scavenge elsewhere required far too much effort. Beth just needed to wallow, just for a few moments, to forget that the world was so shitty and take comfort in Daryl, who seemed to have zero issue with giving her what she needed.

Eventually she calmed, turning her head to the side to rest it against the wet shirt covering Daryl's chest and she considered moving to fetch him dry clothes, but his arms seemed impossibly tight around her. Maybe he needed her just as much as she needed him and perhaps they both needed each other for the same reasons. He shifted anyway, not releasing his hold on her, and Beth soon found herself lying on his chest, leaning next to him as he laid backwards on the hay. His left arm was hooked over her back, the hand resting on her waist and his right hand was holding her left hand on the wet patch of his shirt. As she snuggled her face in closer, he pulled her tighter to him and rubbed his chin across the top of her head.

"I got ya, girl," he whispered and her head nodded against him. The beating of his heart underneath her ear was lulling her to sleep when she heard him whisper, "'s been snowin'."

"Snowing?" she repeated, leaning up to rest her chin on his chest and look him the eye as if he were lying and seeing his eyes would uncover the truth. Now that she was calmer, Beth could appreciate the news of the weather that he had brought her before her breakdown.

"Hmm-hmm." His head nodded back and something akin to a smile crossed his lips, turning up one side of his lips ever so slightly. She smiled then and rested back down on his chest. "What? Ya ain't gonna go run 'n' see?"

"Nah." She shook her head against his chest. To look out the door meant to see the farm down past the trees and remember that no one survived. To look out the door meant reminding herself that there were dangerous people out there willing to take everything from others, willing to take another's life for nothing. Beth was far happier where she was – a heartbeat thudding in her ear, the smell of Daryl and her childhood all around her and the simple hope that maybe after this snow, the world would be pure again. With those thoughts, Beth was quickly asleep again.

When she next awoke, Beth was still in Daryl's arms, lying on his chest and it was dark all around them, colder than it had been before even though there was a blanket wrapped up over them both. Daryl must have covered them both with it whilst she was asleep, but Beth worried that it was not enough so she carefully moved off Daryl and reached in to the bag that was not far away, pulling out a second blanket. She hoped that it was enough as it was all that they had and if the temperature dropped much further they would need to start wearing extra layers to bed. They would need to wear them during the day, too. Snuggling back on to Daryl's chest, attempting to burrow in to his warmth, Beth covered them with a second blanket and took a deep breath to settle herself in for more sleeping.

"Thank fuck for tha'," Daryl mumbled against the top of her head, his nose cold where it brushed her. He pulled her tightly against him again, this time for the warmth and not for emotional comfort.

"Should'a' woke me."

"Nah, reckon we're close to hibernatin' now."

"We got enough food for that?"

He shook his head.

"Might be some left at the farm."

He sighed deeply, blowing her hair away as he did so. "When the weather clears a bit, we got a choice." He coughed with a grunt and continued. "Stay here, if we can find provisions. Head to the farm, rooms there should be warmer. Or continue on t' Washington."

With a hesitation and bite of her lip, Beth wondered if he had said Washington rather than their family because of how she had spoken of them before her slumber. There was no way she was anywhere near ready to give up, to give in like she had tried that day back at her farm, when her mama had died the second time, but that did not stop her from having her wobbles. As if sensing her thoughts, his fingers brushed across her scar, rubbing deeply at it as if his pressure could push the scar away. "I ain't leavin' ya, Daryl. Never."

"Thank fuck for that. Tried this shit without ya once. Didn't like it." Although she had spoken little of Grady, they had spoken even less of his time with the others. She knew about the cannibals and a train car, finding the church and then his search for her, but he had never said anything about before finding Rick other than he had run after her all night until he lost her tracks. And there was something in between the funeral home and the cannibals, between losing Beth and finding Rick, Beth knew that there was, but he only ever shrugged in the usual Daryl way.

"If the snow's started, ain't it best to hole up? Wait out the winter here?"

"If we can find food 'n'…"

"An' what? Avoid whoever attacked the farm?" He nodded. "Maybe that was them taking what they wanted and movin' on. Why hit the same place again?"

His shoulders shrugged underneath him. "Snow might'a' changed their plans."

"Did ya say we had food?" she suddenly asked, sitting up slightly to reach for the closest bag as Daryl 'hmm-hmm-ed'. "Hungry now." It was probably from crying so much, from finally letting out such an emotional spew of thoughts. Or from the day or two that she had been cocooned within the hay. They both shifted to sit up slightly and split a tin of the first thing Beth grabbed out, drinking some water, too before they settled back in the hay, remaining as close as they could to try and retain some warmth. The days and nights all started to blur in to one as all the pair of them did was sleep and eat, barely moving from their spot in the hay. Daryl refused to let them have a fire – he was not about to risk the hay going up, or them attracting whoever might still be out there. Sometimes the cold or hunger gave them reason to sleep, sometimes it was just boredom that led them to sleep again. More often than not as soon as one of them drifted off, the other was not far behind.

She doubted it could have been more than a week, in the end, when Daryl suggested that they finally head to the farm and see if there was anything. They probably should have gone earlier, there might have been perishables that they could have eaten. Maybe the animals had survived the attack and subsequent Walker invasion. But they had both needed to stay there, hidden under the blankets and surrounded by hay. It was the longest period of time since the dead started walking that Beth had not worried about the dead. They had noticed it during their first winter on the road, the winter where she had still had her daddy and Maggie to help keep her warm, Walkers were slower in the cold. They moved slower, as if frozen by the temperature. Their reactions were slower, as if the weather, the snow itself, seemed to stop them smelling fresh blood or feeling the warmth of a living body.

Maybe it was only fear that kept humans faster and alive in the winters now.

After what she guessed was a week of hiding, like she and Maggie had done sometimes on Christmas vacation, leaving the farm chores to Shawn as they hid under blankets and watched rom-coms, eat popcorn and giggled like that was all there was to life, they had headed to the farm. Daryl had been sure that the weather was cold enough to protect them from any Walkers that would have remained in the area. The snow had started up again so visibility was poor, but that was why Beth was pleased to have a hunter in front of her – a hunter who used the walk through the snow as yet another lesson for her. She had rolled her eyes at him when he had started showing her what she needed to notice.

"Girl," he had grumbled, "I ain't gonna let you be Walker meat just cos'a bit a' snow." So, she had listened to him, noticing that every time he bent down to show her something he winced in pain at his side wound. It was healing well and they were almost out of antibiotics when they headed out. He had asked her when they had approached the edge of the tree line, about to be visible to anyone hiding within the farm, why he had waited until now before heading back and she had known. She had known and answered immediately – the snow was covering their tracks behind them, not perfectly but better than with no snow. They had still tried to cover their tracks, back tracked over their steps a few times within the trees. Crossing the snow-covered grass to get to the farm had been the most daunting thing Beth could remember doing in months. There was no protection as they had walked across it in either direction, no idea if someone was waiting in the farm to shoot them at a distance or waiting in the trees to ambush them. And the whole journey there, Beth's brain had been filled with thoughts that maybe someone had survived.

Maybe Grace was hiding in the little cottage, surviving through winter with supplies, too scared to trek up to the barn, too hesitant to leave somewhere that could be safe. Maybe there had been a cellar or attic that the attackers had not searched. The snow had been at a high enough level to cover everything, including bodies that were indistinguishable in their snowy state. There were a lot though, that much Beth did know.

People, Walkers, Harrison's family and maybe some of the attackers themselves, dead on the ground, slowly rotting underneath the pure white snow. Or at least waiting until spring before rotting in to the ground. If they waited until spring, they should clear it all up before leaving. Then it could be a fresh start for whoever came along behind them.

There had been no survivors and only a small handful of Walkers dotted around the place, mainly inside of the buildings and easily recognizable as members of Harrison's family, lots of the unknown Walkers had Ws carved on their foreheads like the ones from the school and Noah's home. But the Walkers at the farm were easy to deal with and there were no survivors so Daryl had turned to her, a question in his eyes and Beth had shook her head.

"Take what we can use, what we need and head back to the barn." She did not want to stay at the farm, it had been someone's home and she could not move in behind them when she had done nothing as they were all massacred. Before they had left, Daryl had left her for a moment at the door to the cottage, both of them weighed down with bags filled with blankets and any food that they could use, and headed to the car Beth had last seen Harrison and Grace driving away from them. She had watched as Daryl had leaned in to the car, the rear seat and then sheathed his knife before heading back to her with a grunt and a nod.

They were close to the edge of the trees again now, once they broke free of the trees the barn would be in sight and it was oddly comforting to Beth. She knew that the world was still going on, time was still passing and people were still living, Walkers were still hungry, but in that barn for the past week or so, she and Daryl had been cocooned in their own little world. In the time before the turn, she guessed that it would have been like lovers spending the weekend in bed, eating and sleeping with the crumbs, watching television and just being alone, ignoring the world and the usual 9-5 of being an adult.

She laughed at that then. The life that she had never had and never would. No one would ever again, she reckoned. At her laugh she felt his eyes on her, knew that one eyebrow was up, questioning her laugh. Without looking up, she asked, "Ya ever spend a weekend in bed with a girl?"

"Ya the first," he admitted and her eyes flickered over to see redness on his cheeks that had little to do with the temperature.

"Reckon that's what lovers do." He huffed in response to her. They had spoken some in their secluded week, had spent time just sitting in comfortable silences and Beth had never experienced anything like it before. Even with her family, there had been reason to break free from everyone and want to be alone. Now, or with him, Beth was unsure, there was no alone and there was no desire to be alone.

"That what you want, Greene, Sunday White Trash brunches in bed?"

She laughed out loud at that. "That life's all gone, Daryl. Ain't no point wantin' the past."

His hand shot out then and almost slapped her on her chest, halting her steps as his eyes examined the open pathway to the barn. Beth's eyes followed his a moment later, after falling on to his un-gloved hand splayed across her chest for a moment before falling away. A few days in to their week of seclusion, Beth had found herself playing with his hand, anything to pass the time really, but she had really examined his hand up close. Each finger. Every scar and mark. The lines. Front and back. The damn thumb that he liked to chew on so much and his nails, all bitten down and filthy dirty like the rest of them both. He had not moved to stop her at all, had fallen asleep during the examination. What had surprised her was that his were still darker than hers, his large, dirty and brown hand held within her smaller and lighter hands, no longer any white there on either of them.

"What?" she finally whispered, her eyes tracking across to the barn, trying to see what he was worried about, or was he simply being cautious?

"Our tracks." He jerked his head towards them and she looked down at them. They were still there, covered slightly in snow, but there none the less, just as they had feared they would be. There were no Walker tracks nearby. In fact, the rest of the snow surrounding the barn was completely untouched. Unless someone had approached from the back, there did not seem to be anything amiss. "Ain't as covered as the ones at the farm."

"That's impossible," she argued, trying to see what he could see. These tracks were older than those at the farm. Unless it had somehow been snowing heavier across there.

"Hmm-hmm." His head nodded, his eyes scanning everywhere around the barn. It was still lightly snowing and they could just about make out the barn, but nothing was too clear about it. Following in his old tracks, Beth followed, stepping exactly where he stepped just as she had done on their journey out. With each step, Beth filled with greater fear, her senses heightening. It was her that stopped a few meters from the barn doors and looked at the snow around them.

"Daryl," she whispered just loud enough that the wind did not blow it away. He turned only his head, twisting to see her. "This snow has been disrupted." With a weird awkwardness that Beth would have laughed at in any other circumstance, Daryl took a few steps back to look at the snow clearer.

"Someone's here," he grumbled. "They stepped in our prints, but fell here." His glove-less hand pointed out to what Beth had seen. "Must be more than one to get back up and cover up."

"Our stuff's in there." It was spoken as if there were any sort of option to turn around and leave. The farm might be habitable for the winter, but the people in the barn would still be too close and they did have bags they had left in the barn. "Can't be an army, right?" There was a false confidence in her voice and the raised eyebrow he gave her indicated that he knew she was bullshitting. He was still injured, but they both had their bows and knives, about to walk in to a barn with a hay loft with a raised advantage. They maybe had the element of surprise, but that would only last until they opened the barn doors. "Wait," Beth urgently grabbed at his arm, surprised once more that she felt warmth through his layers and her own glove.

"What? We're losin' time here, Greene." His patience always quickly dried up when they were on the offensive, or the defensive, or both as the current situation might turn out to be.

"I could go 'round the back. That hatch with the rope ladder."

"The rope ladder we took off an' didn' trust could hold nothin'."

"Yeah, that one." Her shoulders and chest deflated as she resumed following him. There were scuff marks in the snow where the barn doors had been opened slightly, then closed again. There were a few other covered track marks, like whoever had been here had tried walking off to the side and either changed their minds or continued, but hid their actions. "Should we check out the side?" It could be a trap, she wanted to say but there was no need to utter those words. Daryl understood the tracks far better than she ever could. They were standing side by side now, in the slight shelter the roof gave so the ground was only hard and covered with a light dusting here, harder to spot tracks. Harder, but not impossible and Beth could make out three distinct and different tracks, one of which made her pause. When she looked up at Daryl, she saw the question in his eyes, but also the concern that he felt over walking in to a trap. She knew then that he wished they had the others, more people to help watch their backs, to watch her.

"Nah. Just risk it." His shoulders fell as if in defeat over a bad plan, as if already blaming himself for what could go wrong so he turned back to the large doors and put a hand on the handle, ready to pull it open. Her own hand shot up and covered his.

"Whatever happens, Daryl, this ain't ya fault. Ya go on, ya hear me? Ya find Maggie an' Judith, but do not blame yourself, ya hear me?"

"Back atcha, girl," he said with a hint of a smile as he pulled the door open.

 **A/N: It may be more fanon than canon re Walkers slowing in the Winter, but I buy in to the theory. Although let's face it, there's lots of the biology of Walkers that makes little sense.**


	12. Chapter 12

It was the truth when he told her that it would not be her fault, their clear walking in to a trap, but he refused to believe it the other way around. That was just how he was built, how he had become given his youth – everything was his fault and he would carry the responsibility of everything on his shoulders. When he had been told as much enough times by his drunken father, it became something hard to unlearn, but with Beth sometimes he wondered if it was actually possible. So, with a hint of a smile on his face, mirrored and amplified on her, he pulled open the door, sliding it to one side and Beth was there and taking a step inside before he could.

He could smell it before he saw anything, the only illumination coming from the door as he walked in through it. It was blood, metallic and tangy in his nostrils, yet there was no reek of death and decay. The blood was fresh which unnerved him more than it should have done. Beth risked a glance across at him, an eyebrow raised in query and he jerked his head over his crossbow so they both stepped further inside. That was when he saw it, moments before Beth did if her gasp was anything to go by. There was a body tied to one of the structural support beams running from the ground and up to the hay loft. There was steam coming from the torn-up torso, rope bound above and beneath the wound of the naked form, dirty skin and scraggly dirty hair.

Daryl paused as Beth continued walking towards to the strung-up victim, his eyes flickering around the barn, checking for tracks on the floor and then viewing the hay loft, waiting for someone to drop out on them. Someone had clearly butchered the girl in front of him, for some completely unfathomable reason, but Daryl had no idea where the culprits were. Hell if he was going to let them anywhere near Beth.

Beth gasped again, her whisper distracting Daryl. "She's alive."

From the corner of his eye, Daryl watched as Beth stepped closer and then he heard her inhale sharply, exhaling a name: "Jocelyn."

She tipped up the woman's head and Daryl almost warned her against it.

"Daryl, look," she whispered and he took a few steps backwards and glanced across his shoulder. It was Jocelyn, her eyes open, her breathing raspy and pained, but she was still human, and there was a W written on her head. No, not written, he realized at the bright red drops dripping down in to her eyebrows.

"What the…?" he mumbled as Jocelyn's eyes suddenly snapped to focus on Beth and she cried out.

"Run!"

"Might wanna do as she says," a male voice laughed and Beth turned sharply, Daryl merely shifted his head towards the large, still open barn door and saw two men standing there – both with large knives in a hand and both looking generally cold and unkempt. Both of them had Ws on their heads, marked, but not etched on.

"The fuck you making Walkers for?" Daryl growled as Beth gasped, her own knife already unsheathed and ready. Shifting his body slightly, Daryl aimed his crossbow at the largest of the two men, though neither looked particularly large or imposing. Malnutrition had hit these guys hard, hopefully harder than it had Beth, Daryl thought as his brain tried to formulate a plan. He had faced foes larger than these his entire life and he knew that Beth could handle her self.

They both laughed, sending invisible shivers down Daryl's spine. "Making Walkers, as you call 'em, to help rid us of a people problem." From in between Daryl and Beth, Jocelyn went silent and Beth moved towards her, forcing her knife through her dead skull without hesitation. The men laughed again. "See now, this bitch was one of us. Had been for a month or so. Helped us ransack that farm down there."

"No," Beth quietly whispered, the horror clear in her voice. Jocelyn must have gone almost straight from the school to these freaks, finding it the only way to survive. She had been a good person once, but that was hard for Daryl to reconcile with what he had seen down at that farm. He had seen one of the mothers get the babies in to the car and then be killed. From what he had watched, none of these bastards had done anything about the babies, freezing and alone in the back of the car. He had sorted out the monstrosities they had been left to become without Beth knowing anything.

"Yeah, she didn't like to. Not at first, but we persuaded her." There was a leer on his face that Daryl considered punching clear off.

"Sweet piece of ass she was," the smaller of the two said, grinning and showing his brown rotting teeth. Beth winced at his words as the larger man continued.

"Recognized the two of you, she did. Asked us to leave you both alone. But we couldn't have that."

"Why not?" Beth asked. "We ain't done you no harm. Plenty of places t' stay down there."

"Nah, pretty lady, we ain't sharing this world no more."

"Pretty shitty outlook," Daryl grumbled, wondering if it was truly what the world had come to. His world had been shitty enough before all of this, he had never considered it could ever get worse.

"Yeah, like you're willing to share this piece of ass, redneck shit."

"Hey!" Beth argued taking an offensive step forward, insulted for either of them or both.

The bigger of the men, the one Daryl had slowly been edging to, suddenly sprang forward, lunging at Daryl and knocking the bow down just as he loosed an arrow, sending it to the floor instead of in to the man. The guy shoved his shoulder low in to Daryl, forcing a grunt from him as the attack hit straight on to his wound. The world vanished for a few moments as pain flooded his body and all the oxygen left his lungs. It was all just snippets of sounds – Beth's heavy breathing, muffled sounds, heavy and hard thuds, kicks and punches, little grunts from Beth and louder from the men.

Finally, Daryl managed to open his eyes and saw them, a bit blurry all around the edges. She kicked the smaller guy, still bigger than her, on a kneecap and he fell to the ground, hard. Then she shot her right leg, her stronger and dominant leg, backwards into the stomach of the bigger man, sending him staggering back a few steps. Landing on her right foot, she swung around and brought her left knee up in to the man's face before turning slightly and bringing her fist, holding the hilt of her knife tightly, across the smaller guy's face.

With slow and cautious, careful steps backwards away from the fallen men and towards Daryl, Beth said, "Daryl?"

"'m okay," he managed to mumble, standing up straight. Her hands were on him then, her back to the attackers, but Daryl was standing tall, his bow freshly nocked and trained across the barn whilst his free arm was slung across her back, holding her tightly to him.

"Think we can let 'em go?" she whispered, tearing herself away from him and frantically pulling at his shirts and coat, getting to his stitched-up wound. There was an innocence and naivety in her voice that Daryl could not bring himself to answer her out loud. She should get to keep that. Forever.

Instead, he shook his head and pulled away from her, but she stopped him with a hand to his chest and refused to move until he met her eyes, the weight of her gaze was a compelling pressure. He feared that she was going to stop him, that she was going to try and talk him out of it, telling him again that there were still good people, that they were both just men and then he would have to argue with her because he had given up the hunt for the Governor and all of them had paid the price, Hershel the most though. And it would piss her off, make her cry if he brought up Hershel, but he knew what he needed to do, what simply had to be done and there was no way that he would hesitate.

"Ya stitches are all good," she whispered thickly, releasing him with a nod of her head. He hated himself then, those men, the whole entire fucking world. With a jerky head nod, Daryl stepped past her, her delicate fingertips brushing his inflamed skin as her hand fell away. "Daryl, wait."

"What's it, girl?"

"I can-" she started, but he cut her off, refusing to hear her suggestion.

"No, just fuckin' no. Go check on our stuff." Because there was no way that she was going to be happy staying here any more. He was not too keen on the idea. For one thing, they had no way of burying three bodies what with the snow and frozen ground. A fire would barely keep burning in these temperatures and it would be too much of a risk to bring other people, Walkers even down on to them. And there was no way that he was about to let her deal with the men. It was bad enough that she had killed people in defence, that he had let her kill the cop that been about to force her, but to kill these two men, that was a job only for him. "Or tidy up, Jocelyn."

This time she let go and he hovered over the bigger guy, who was just starting to wake, and shoved him flat on his back with a boot to his chest, pressing down firmly.

"Can't keep her safe forever, Trailer Trash, there's more Wolves coming." Without hesitation, Daryl fired the arrow at the smaller man, still unconscious and straight in the top of his head.

"Die tryin'," he said, unsheathing his knife and gripping it tightly, slamming it down through the man's open eyes.


	13. Chapter 13

They had left the hay barn soon after Daryl had moved the bodies outside, after Beth had finished wrapping Jocelyn up as delicately as she could. Moving quietly to gather up their belongings and head back in to the snow, they had only spoken for Daryl to say they would get a car from the farm to work, head out from there. He had been to the local town, knew of a few places they could maybe hunker down in for the rest of Winter. She had nodded, gloved hands pulling on her backpack straps and her eyes on the snow. She was sick of this shit.

Beyond sick.

The days were slowly getting longer and it was probably the new year, but that meant less to Beth than it ever had before. Every day was just another day now. Another day to be cold, to scavenge for food, to fight just to breathe, to wonder if it's the day a Walker got you, or the cold, or hunger, or a man simply wanting what you had.

They had made it to the farm, Daryl had ushered her in to the little cottage for a final scavenge whilst he sorted out the car. He had been lying to her, he still was, about the car, but when he had called her name, it was ready, the engine running. They had driven slowly, and silently, Beth's focus on the white passing by. For the first time in months, the silence that had been in that car had felt mildly uncomfortable. Things had improved in the few week's since. Time had blurred, once again, but Beth reckoned it was getting closer to February now. It would be spring soon enough.

"Oh, wow!" she suddenly gasped.

"Huh?" Daryl grunted from his position on the window seat. They had found a small block of apartments, only four floors high and four apartments on each floor. First they had cleared the ground floor of Walkers, quickly securing an apartment on the second floor before heading back to the first four apartments and scavenging them for everything they could ever potentially use. Due to the snow, Daryl reckoned they were safe from the Walkers if they were high enough up and did not make too much noise. It being just the two of them, there was no reason for a high amount of noise and as long as they could keep warm enough huddled in a bed together with one hundred and one blankets, food would be the only limiting factor. The ground floor doors and windows had all been secured, a few by Daryl himself, and then they had started working through the remaining seven apartments. In the end, there had only been a small handful of Walkers to dispose of. Daryl had figured it was because most people had left their homes even if the little town was however out of the way. The Walkers they had needed to kill and dispose had all been either elderly or a family of four from one of the third-floor apartments.

There had been blood everywhere in that apartment, neither had said anything, but Beth thought it looked like one of the family had turned and then took the other three with them.

They were still camped out in the second-floor apartment and, after the few weeks they had been there, it really felt like home to Beth. But she had lost the last two places she truly considered home and it worried her sometimes enough to keep her awake at night that this would just be another home to lose and that attachments were for the weak. Then she would think about her attachments to her family and to Daryl in particular. She would find herself staring at him in the dim moonlight at night, her mind filled with thoughts of losing everything and how much it would hurt her.

"It's warmin' up, right? Figure we're mid-January already."

"Nearer February."

"Judith'll be one soon, it's almost spring."

He grunted, checking his arrows as she sat on the lumpy couch across for him. They spent their time awake in the living rooms, making a conscious distinction between daytime and when they slept in the smallest bedroom, trying to conserve heat. Sometimes they did spend extra time in bed, just because it was too cold to brave the other rooms, to venture out from the blankets. It was rare that her daddy ever let her have the weekend to laze about in bed, but sometimes she felt like her and Daryl snuggling in bed just to stay warm was like a lazy Sunday morning.

"Remember this time last year?" she asked wistfully. "Hadn't even found the prison. Lori was still…" She sighed sadly. Life was measured by death now. "It was safe, right? Could'a' been home for longer, yeah?" The answer was obvious and she felt so pathetic asking it, she was glad when he did not answer her, did not belittle her, call her out and make her feel like a little girl. Not that she had felt like that since the moonshine shack, the night that things had changed.

Beth still wondered sometimes if that had been the first time he had ever really opened up, maybe to anyone. Maybe she was the first person to seem him vulnerable, to see him cry.

"We survived that winter though," she continued across the silence, suddenly feeling an odd combination of melancholia and home sickness. She missed the prison, the farm, her mama and Shawn, Daddy and Lori. She wanted to see Maggie and Judith again. She wanted to go out and find them now, damn the snow that was still thinly laid outside. With a frustrated growl Beth stood up angrily and Daryl finally looked over.

"Ya gonna cry, Greene?"

"Bite me, Dixon," she retorted. Since the Wolves and leaving Harrison's farm, things had been quieter than normal and it was all on Beth. Daryl was his usual silent self, not trying to push or pull her, but she felt his eyes linger on her in the silence and knew that he was concerned. Everything felt so hard and pointless, pathetic and meaningless. She knew it was all on her. Though, even with his concerned glances, Daryl was probably enjoying the silence. "Gonna check another apartment."

Neither of them said anything else as she left their place, armed and her knife in her hand just in case, because neither of them were complacent. Neither of them would ever become complacent again. Not after the farm. Not after the prison and certainly not after the funeral home that ended up with her in Grady. No matter that the building was clear and that, in the silent world that now existed, it would be hard to miss the sounds of a Walker breaking in to the place, there was always the possibility of something.

So, alone, but ready, Beth made her way to one of the other apartments on the same level that they had already checked over. They checked all of the rooms for supplies – the essentials, but they had not picked through the twelve other apartments of life for games or books, fun and frivolous items that were simply going to help Beth at least pass her time with only Daryl for company.

Not that she minded his company one bit, but at the end of the world, trapped in a frozen building with a long journey still ahead of them, having only him to talk to had become a bit of a frustration for her. Maybe she would find a game that she could convince him to play, or find a book that piqued her interest and she could waste away a cold day or two. She was craving the woods and nature, she knew that Daryl was suffering from some sort of cabin fever, but masking it for her.

Rifling through a pile of magazines, fingers brushing over the spines of books, Beth heard the door push open slightly and she sighed in feigned annoyance at Daryl. "I'm fine on my own."

He had told her a few nights earlier, under the cover of dark, her head on his chest, that she worried him. She had asked why and his fingers had slid over the healed slit on her wrist. Something in her chest had hurt, throbbed in pain at his lack of words, at her own, and at how well he knew her. It was true that sometimes she did feel like giving up, like curling up in a ball to never wake up again. But she never felt like she had, when she had not wanted to live, before she had chosen to stay and live.

"'n' I told ya – I ain't leavin' ya. Ever. Okay?" she said and looked over at the door, except it was not Daryl that she saw standing in the doorway. Instead Beth saw a rather large, dark man, glasses on his face and long knotted hair and he almost filled the door. He had a gun, in a holster and a knife out in his hands. Beth's fingers flickered over her own knife, still firmly in her hand and her eyes narrowed as the man's knife lowered slightly.

"It's just for protection," he said. "From the dead."

"Yeah, well, I met too many people now who're worse than the dead."

"Must be hard."

It was. It was so hard for her that Beth wondered if all her faith was gone.

"I mean, living out here, just you and…" He left the question hanging, waiting for her to answer but she did not.

"'n' me," Daryl's gruff voice said from behind the guy, an arrow pressed to his skull.

"Whoa!" the stranger said with his hands up in defence. "I'm no threat. I'm just scavenging."

"This place is ours. Move along," Daryl growled.

"Okay. Okay, I can do that. Got a friend here, she's upstairs."

"She won't find nothing," Beth answered, wondering if it truly were just the two of them.

"Yep, fine, we can do that. Just… just let me wait for her or go find her. We'll leave you be, don't want any trouble. We have people waiting for us back home."

"Home?" Beth asked.

"Yeah," he nodded. "A few of us, safe. We still need to make runs. That's what I do. We take people in sometimes."

"Sounds familiar," Beth smiled lightly, almost wistfully. "We used-"

"Girl!" Daryl growled, at her this time. "Ya got this?" he asked, pushing the man further in to the apartment and down on to a chair. "Do I need to tie him?"

"No," she sighed, holding her own knife firmly in one hand and taking the stranger's from him whilst Daryl removed his gun and shoved it in to his own waist band.

"I'll go find ya friend. Best only be the one," Daryl grumbled as he left the apartment, leaving the door open slightly so Beth could hear him from outside. It pained Beth to see him so distrustful, it pained her less so that she was so distrustful. She hated herself when she needed to hold a weapon on a man when all he had done was walk in to a room where she was. This man and his friend might not be any threat whatsoever.

She turned to the guy. "You really think where you guys got is safe? Everyone always ends up running." Part of her was asking in doubt that he could have somewhere whilst part of her wanted to hope that it was true and that, maybe, she and Daryl could be safe there, too.

"No. Not really. We got overrun with the dead a while back, but we fought back. It's better than being out here, living so wild. We still lose people, but we find them, too. Take in good people."

"Good people," she almost laughed. "I used to believe in them."

"Are you a good person?" he asked and she eyed him as if he were testing her like Rick and the others used to have questions to ask newcomers. She thought of the two men Daryl had called wolves, that Daryl had killed because he had to and so that she did not.

"Yeah, I am," she finally answered with reluctance, putting down the knives to thumb through a book. "But this world ain't that simple anymore."

"We are. My people, the ones I live with. We'll fight to protect our own, but we don't hurt anyone without reason. We're all good people. A family now."

Just as Beth was starting to wonder if it really could be true, the door swung open wildly and loud. "Let him go!" the woman demanded, coming straight up to Beth, a gun directed at the blonde.

Beth was too far from her knives to be able to reach them in time and her mind went blank and red from anger when she saw the brunette standing in front of her, a gun trained on her, as memories from long ago flooded her. Instead, she reached for the nearest weapon she could – a small pair of scissors.

"Heath, you okay?" the brunette demanded.

"I know you," Beth declared, standing up tall and straight. "I get it now," she snarled, bringing the scissors up to the brunette's throat. "I get it."


	14. Chapter 14

Daryl had only made it to the staircase when he heard a noise behind him, in the direction of Beth and their guest, and their own apartment, so he slowly back tracked. There was only one staircase, positioned at one end of the small block of apartments, a fire door blocking the stairs from each individual floor. If the intruder was indeed upstairs, there was no way that it could be them, but Daryl was untrusting of anything anyone else could say. As he neared the door, he could see it was open wider than when he had left it. Maybe it was Beth that had made the noise, to get his attention, or she was in trouble from the man he had left her alone with. It did not matter that he was unarmed, Daryl should have tied the stranger up, but he had been loath to and knew that Beth hated how much they had to distrust people, how hard they had to be sometimes.

It was why he had killed the two men he thought called themselves wolves, and why he had dealt with the babies in the car, so unwilling to even let Beth be aware of what was in the car. No one was innocent in this world anymore, except perhaps those babies and Judith, but Beth was the next closest thing that the world had and he was damned if it was going to change on his watch.

Peering past the door frame, Daryl saw Beth standing tall but a head shorter than a brunette woman, scissors in the blonde's hands and hovering above the brunette's chest. The brunette's back was to him, but he could see the gun in her hands so he drew his own gun, the one taken from the guy, and shouldered his bow.

"Drop it," he snarled as a weird sense of déjà vu made his spine shiver just the slightest. Not enough to alter his stance.

"Everyone calm down, please!" The guy implored, still sitting exactly where Daryl had left him despite his friend's gun on Beth. "Tara…"

"No, Heath," she objected. "She had you at knife point."

"Yeah," Beth agreed. "An' now I got ya."

"With scissors? Please," Tara scoffed. "Ya see this lil old gun here?" Beth cocked her head in Daryl's direction, over Tara's shoulder and she turned as much as she could given the point of the scissors now closing in on her. The woman looked at Daryl in fear as he squeezed his hand around the gun tighter, but then a curious recognition crossed the brunette's face, which was when it dawned on Daryl.

"Beth, lower the scissors."

"No, Daryl, I know her – she was with the Governor. She killed Daddy, Daryl!"

"I…" Tara tried to respond, but Beth pressed in closer, the scissors now actually pressing against the skin on her throat.

"Greene, ya don't gotta do this." He needed her to calm down, his finger twitched on the trigger, but he had no idea what he was supposed to do. There was no way he could let Beth kill this Tara woman, he recognized her from the boxcar, he was sure of it now that he could see her clearer. But how was he supposed to stop her? And Tara still had her damn gun in her hand.

"Greene?" Tara managed to hiss tightly and Beth blinked, panic and doubt in her eyes for a moment.

"Beth," Daryl said approaching slowly, all his weapons now down. Heath was still seated, waiting for whatever was about to explode first. "This girl," he remembered, "she got outta the prison wi' Glenn. 'Member I tol' ya 'bout Terminus? Her and Glenn, Maggie, Sasha 'n; Bob, Rick 'n' Carl, Michonne, too, some others – they were there."

Beth's hand relaxed slightly, but there was still a dangerous anger in her pose. "Still there when Daddy died," she argued.

"Maggie," Heath said, "that your sister?"

Beth blinked rapidly, tears coating her eyes. Confusion was evident on her face and she nodded jerkily.

"We know her," Heath whispered.

"What?" Beth fell back a step, the scissors clattering to the ground and Daryl felt all the air leave his lungs, but he surged forwards to catch her around the waist. Small and fragile hands surrounded his bicep, clinging on tightly as Tara nodded.

"We went back to the church," she explained to Daryl. "Got Rick 'n' the others, headed to Washington. You'd run off the night before, Angel Wings."

"Daryl," Beth mumbled. "His name's Daryl."

"So ya followed that fool up here?" No way that fool who had been in the boxcar with them knew shit about a cure, Daryl was sure of that; he had been at the CDC.

Tara laughed. "Yeah."

"Don't see no cure walkin' the streets."

"Eugene lied."

"No shit."

"We did make it to a settlement. With walls and security, only about a day's drive away. It's called-"

"Tara!" Heath objected. "We don't just tell strangers about it."

"Strangers? Heath, this is Maggie's _sister_. They're family."

"Are they all okay?" asked Beth suddenly, grabbing Tara's hands. "Maggie? Glenn? Judith? Carl?"

Tara nodded, a smile on her face and Daryl felt the relief fill Beth. As she had moved forward towards Tara, Beth had stepped away from Daryl and he could not see her face, but he knew her posture. "We got to… where we are," she shot a glance at Heath who rolled his eyes. "With most of us from that boxcar, and Carol, Tyresse and Judith who I met afterwards. We left that church with Father Gabriel. We lost someone there though, before we left. The medic?"

"Bob?" Daryl asked, remembering clearly who had been with them at the boxcar, at the church, before and after. He had repeated all the names to Beth multiple times over the past few months. _Tell me again, Daryl,_ she would say, _who was there on the railroad? Terminus? The Church? Who made it outta the prison like us?_ He would tell her what little of their stories that he could remember, only leaving out that Lizzie and Mika had made it but something happened that neither Carol nor Tyresse would speak of. There was no way that Beth needed to know that two such young had made it out but not to Terminus.

"Yeah, at the church. I… I didn't get to know him or anything. But, all the rest of us from the church, from that boxcar, we made it there. We've been on a run for over a week, but they were all there and safe when we left."

"Even Judith?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, thank you, Lord." She fell back a step and straight on to Daryl's hand which planted across her lower back, keeping her up and steadying her. Always keeping her up. She turned towards him and his left arm moved up and over her shoulder as she seemed to hide in his chest. Even through his layers of clothes, Daryl quickly felt the dampening of them from her happy tears.

"And Maggie, she's… she's having a baby," Tara blurted with a huge smile across her face. The idea of that completely confused Daryl, he had no idea how she and Glenn had made that decision, unless the place they had really was that safe.

"What?" Beth asked, pulling away from Daryl enough to see Tara's smile, a small hesitant smile on her own face. "That's amazing." That was all that Beth had wanted for Maggie, she had said so on the porch when they had no idea if Maggie or anyone else had even survived.

Daryl was far from trusting the girl he barely knew from the boxcar, but he did believe her. Maybe he might trust her more when he saw any one of the people she claimed was still alive. It would be good to see Rick again, and Carol. Fuck, both of them meant so much to him since the dead had started walking and something started itching within him to see them, like, now. "Can't go nowhere tonight," he commented, jerking his head to the door and Beth paused as if lost or confused, before jumping a step towards the door and he followed her.

"We're in 4B," she called over her shoulder. "We've checked each apartment, take any you want."

Once they were in the hallway crossing the short distance to _their_ apartment, she twirled and walked backwards, smiling across at Daryl. It was the first genuine smile he had seen in weeks, maybe longer, maybe since Harrison's farm and the girl, Grace. He believed Tara, so did Beth, that was all that mattered given how sad she had been as time had worn on. He had started to worry for her and though he had never admitted it to her or even fully himself, sometimes in the dark of night, he would worry she would try and end it all again. Daryl had no idea how to try and stop that from happening.

"Can you believe it, Daryl, really believe it?"

"That they're alive and a day away, yeah."

"What?" she asked, closing the door to their place, locking it up tight behind her. "The walls?" she questioned, knowing his doubts already.

"Hmm-hmm." Nowhere was safe. He had taught her that.

"Look," she said, her right hand taking his left whilst her left hand cupped his cheek. Instantly, he leant in to it, comforted by the warmth and reassurance she provided him. "If Rick's there, it's gotta be safe, right?"

"What we all thought about the prison."

"Yeah, an' we got out together. We survived. So did they." He was still hesitant and she saw it straight away. "Give it a try, if we don't like it, well, Tara and Heath do runs. Said they been gone over a week. We could do the same." His eyes squinted at her and she smiled. "Yes, Daryl, I'd do that for you. We're a team now, you're stuck wi' me, but don't go gettin' all cocky, Mr Dixon."

"Get to bed, girl." He slapped at her hip to send her away, but she paused.

"Ya comin'?" They did normally sleep in the bed together, for warmth primarily, but also because they both slept better close to each other. Separately, sleep was filled with tossing and turning, together and they each slept deeper which had it's risks, but there were two locked doors to the hall, two flights of stairs to the ground. His eyes flickered to the door, to where two strangers were nearby.

Just on what could only be three months, maybe four, he and Beth had encountered enough people to not trust, but also enough to trust.

"Come on," she pulled at his hand. "Last night at home. Kinda feels sad, that we're gonna leave it, like it was ours."

He followed her silently, knowing already that anywhere with her was home.

It was not the walls, not the comfortable bed. It was not Maggie or Carol or Rick.

It was just her, all her, and nothing else.


	15. Chapter 15

At some point during the night, a storm started up, waking Beth from her comfortable and warm position sprawled across Daryl. He had become a deeper sleeper since they had been living here together, just the two of them, but it still surprised her when something awoke her before him so she took the moment to look at him. There was a crack in the thick blankets they had thrown up over the window, meant to give them enough light to know when it was day time, but it was also enough for Beth to see the lightening brighten the room.

There was so much peace on his face when he was asleep, that it really did marvel Beth because he was far from peaceful during his waking hours. Sure, he was quiet and withdrawn, even still was alone with her, but no one would ever think he was peaceful. Anger was always not too far from his eyes or brow. If you could see either behind his hair. In sleep, though, it was like the pressures of the day, the pressures of their life as it was now, the memories from his past that she knew little of, had all melted away for those few hours of sleep.

For days the weather had been still with nothing happening. There had been no fresh snow for at least a week, the temperatures were slowly increasing after the freezing winds that had frozen the snow solid to ice, and maybe the snow was melting very slightly. It was still deep out though, still cold enough that if she watched out of the window all day she would see no sign of life, or death. This rain would wash it away though, and Beth wondered what that would bring with it.

Curiosity got the better of her and she carefully and slowly climbed out of bed, shivering for a moment as the cold of the air hit her. Daryl did not even stir as she glanced down at him, smiling as she then approached the window and pulled the blanket away a slither more to watch the world light up. Everything seemed so calm as she looked out on it, calm despite the rain beating down upon everything, beating and thrashing it as if trying to mold the world into something new. For a moment, Beth allowed herself to pretend that the world was still normal, that the dead stayed dead, that her daddy and mama, Patricia, Shawn and Otis were all at the farm and she was staying in town at a friend's, watching a storm from a girlie sleep over. Because the world looked just like the world always had – covered in snow, the white hiding every blemish that showed the world had ended and people had died.

Everything could be normal if she could just freeze the moment right then.

"Girl, ain't it cold out there."

"Nah. Come look."

Silently he moved to stand behind her and she felt him there, his warmth radiating from him and she could not help the shiver although she was not bothered by the cold. There was something in the air, she reckoned it must be the electricity all around them, from the air, filling the space between them.

"Used to love a storm," she whispered just loud enough to be heard above the rain.

"Huh?"

"Summer ones. I'd go out in them. Twirl around and just… soak it up."

"Fuckin' winter now."

"I know. Still pretty though, cleansing. Like, in summer, it'd break the heat, freshen the air."

It was silent then, until another crack split through the air and she flinched with a smile, enjoying the shock and surprise.

"Maybe this storm's for cleansing us," she continued.

"Us?"

She turned around to him, not realizing quite how close he was when she almost brushed against his chest, but she was unable to raise her face, unable to meet his eyes. Not that she had any idea if he was looking at her; he would not usually be given this situation. "We'll be with the others tomorrow," she whispered. "Back with our family."

"Uh-huh."

"And all this will stop. They have walls, homes, beds. We won't," she coughed, "We won't need to keep watch, to keep warm side by side, wrapped up together."

"Nah, we won't."

"So maybe this storm's meant to reset us for being back with them. Ya know, our journey's over. You brought me back to 'em, kept me safe all the way from the prison."

"Uh-huh," he sighed, taking a step back, though it did not feel as if he was trying to escape her.

"'Cept I don't want it to." She looked up at him then, unsure if he had been able to hear her voice over the rain until his eyes met hers and neither of them looked away. "I don't want a normal life, a life without you. Ain't livin' if ya ain't there." Where her words or thoughts had come from was a shock even to Beth. In the early days, before and then after the farm fell, Beth would wish to turn back the clock and take it all back, but now she had no idea how she ever could have lived the life she had before.

"I'm here." His voice was as quiet as hers, wobbly like he was unsure how to say them.

"But there? Will ya be? With Rick 'n' Carol 'n' Maggie, when I might jus' be Judith's mama again."

"I'll be wherever ya want me to be."

"Listenin' t' me singin' lullabies?"

He shook his head, eyes still locked on to hers. "Don' need to be anyone ya don' wanna be. Jus' be who ya are." It felt like déjà vu, him repeating the words back to her from a night that felt like a lifetime ago.

"An' if that's with you?" she asked.

"What if ya change ya mind?" he asked, his eyes ducking away for the first time since they had locked. Self doubt was obvious.

"Daryl Dixon! I am not about to just up 'n' change how I feel about ya!" His eyes glanced up at her briefly and then looked everywhere but her and it spoke volumes to her, making her heart ache that he was still so unsure. The brave, strong man who had undoubtedly changed her world, formed her in to a survivor, still felt so undeserving.

"I'unno," he finally answered, head ducked low and she wanted to laugh at his grumble, an echo of their night at the funeral home, of the night he let her bury Noah both filled with grief, a reminder of something they frequently broached and always backed away from. Her right hand shot up almost of its own volition, cupping his cheek softly and forcing his face up, his eyes still refusing to look at her.

"Don't I'unno me," she whispered in to the darkness.

His eyes stared in to her then and she could see it all.

"You know," he breathed out. With a gentleness that surprised them both, each of them moved forward, their lips meeting as he ducked slightly and she lifted up slightly. It was brief, it was new and when Beth pulled back, she smiled and moved a step towards their bed. With a nod, more to herself, she continued to walk away until she was stopped by his hand grabbing at her wrist, fumbling for her fingers.

A bolt of lightening lit up the room and as the thunder filled the room, their lips crashed together in a mess of tongues and limbs, of heated hands desperately seeking the purchase of material and skin. Through all the long months, the nights spent wrapped up in each other's arms, Beth had never allowed the thought of this very moment to crystallise in her mind's eye. This was where it had all been leading to, ever since that uncomfortably warm and humid night that they burnt down their past and moved forward together, this coming together had been inevitable since then, fated to happen.

After the storm cleared, the four of them headed to Alexandria. It took longer than they had expected, shifting the resources Daryl and Beth had sourced from the small apartment block to the camper van that Tara and Heath had left almost a day's walk away. Daryl had commented that it was _fucking insane to be on a run in this weather_ , which Beth had grinned at until Tara had explained how dire the food situation was. Then they had to drive slowly due to the snow still blanketing the world in front of their eyes. It was slowly starting to melt and Beth had seen a few Walkers moving around, their own bodies warming up. Tara filled the silence of the drive with information about Alexandria.

A nervous excitement filled Beth whilst she could feel the anxiety rolling off Daryl. The way that his hair covered his eyes, his true thoughts and emotions, how his thumb was bitten to Hell and back already. Just as the sun was getting ready to set on a clear and cloudless day, Heath slowed the camper van and Beth looked up to see the walls and a gate.

"When we get in," Heath explained, "you should wait here whilst I get Rick."

"He's pretty much the leader since Deanna… she died."

"Wait!" Beth said suddenly and all eyes turned to her. "Can we… could we… Feels better if we walk in. Reckon we could?"

Heath nodded. "Sure."

"I'll come outside with you," Tara offered herself as a friendly face for whoever was on the gate.

Once they were both outside of the van, Beth and Daryl reached for each other's hand, their fingers interlocking. Their knives were sheathed, his crossbow slung across his back and the angel wings just about visible as they stood for a moment, watching the gates start to slide open.

"Let's go home." As one, they stepped towards the gate.

 **The End!**

My first Walking Dead story is all done. Hope you have enjoyed, thank you for all the favourites and reviews. I have loved them!

I'm working with the timeline from the Walking Dead Wikia and it states that less than a year, or just about a year, has passed since Judith being born and the whole Negan thing starting, which is why I had it be winter (though we don't really see season extremes in the show, Judith was born in spring). This also means that when Beth, Daryl, Tara and Heath return, Negan is ruling over Rick and everyone and Tara never found Oceanside.

Thank you for reading!


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